


Allision

by AKA_Green



Series: The Spy and the Soldier [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Angry Steve Rogers, Angst, Artist Steve Rogers, Blood and Violence, Fluff, Gun Violence, Homophobia, Hydra is a Nazi party, Let Bucky Barnes Be Happy When He Can Be, M/M, Minor Character Death, Non-Serum Steve Rogers/Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes | Shrinkyclinks, Pets, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Service Dogs, Smoking, Some Humor, Spy Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers and the 21st Century, Steve Rogers-centric, Theft, Twitter, Violence, avengers cameos - Freeform, he has the serum but it doesn't make him big, punching nazis is a good thing, tbh i kicked up the violence in this to emphasize that spy steve ain't fuckin around
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-10-20
Packaged: 2018-11-21 19:35:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 22
Words: 44,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11364195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AKA_Green/pseuds/AKA_Green
Summary: “A lot of things you don't know about me. I'm sorry to have to do this, but I had no place else to crash.” Fury shows his phone, the light illuminating brightly in the dark. ‘Ears everywhere. SHIELD compromised.’Steve feels a lot of things at once. Boiling rage, all-encompassing denial, utter exasperation, sudden realization and paranoia, the itch for his guns and shield and goggles. He puts a gun in each hand and looks outside. He wants to hit his head against the wall. He subtly mouths ‘I’m going to kill you’ at Fury who looks like he understands.(All Steve wanted was a nice date to end well for once, dammit.)___On hiatus while I work on Teen Vigilantism!___





	1. Novitious

**Author's Note:**

> Allision: a violent striking; the intentional collision of two ships.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Novitious: created anew or newly invented.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys, I'm back! So, I've been working really hard on the sequel to Temerity and voila! I'll be honest, a lot of the beginning is just fluff and settling into their new life, so you'll have to wait for the bloodshed and Hydra fuckery for later. (Call it scene development if you want to.) I hope you enjoy anyway! Leave comments and suggestions (even if it's pointing out mistakes!)

The house SHIELD bought them was a lovely two-story monstrosity in a neat pastel blue. The trim and deck were snow white, as were the windows, and green vines covered the left side completely. Steve liked the way it looked, in all honesty. It was homely, simple, and neat. There were two and a half bathrooms and three bedrooms upstairs. It was pretty empty but had nice open spaces and sturdy walls. Most of the appliances were brand new, and everything had been updated prior to their arrival in order to avoid any potential accidents or problems.

After the brief exploration, Steve and Bucky went out back, where a nice open space surrounded by flowering trees and tall bushes enclosed a grassy area. They sat on the back deck and Charlie went exploring.

“Well,” Bucky said, Charlie prancing around and chewing on his dog toys. “We’ve got a house. Now all we gotta do is make it a home.”

“That’s cheesy, Buck,” Steve said.

Bucky laughed and knocked shoulders with him. “S’true, ain’t it? We gotta get furniture, move in and everything.” He made a wide motion, gesturing to their backyard in emphasis. He tended to do wider motions when he wasn’t wearing his arm, maybe to compensate, though Steve wasn’t sure of the exact reason.

“I guess we gotta,” Steve agreed. “Do we gotta be nice to the neighbors too? That sounds like more trouble than it’s worth.” Steve ran a hand through his hair, pushing it back a bit.

Bucky laughed again, throwing his stump over Steve’s shoulders. “You punk.”

“I hope they’re assholes. Gonna fight ‘em.” Steve leaned into Bucky, arms crossed.

Charlie romped around, rolling in the grass and checking in on Bucky every now and then by bringing him a toy to throw. “Didja ever think we’d have a backyard?”

“Nah,” Steve said, then raising an eyebrow at Bucky. “Didja ever think we’d fight in the second world war against a man with a red face?”

Bucky wrinkled his nose. “Well… no. It hadn’t crossed my mind. I kinda thought the League of Nations would do something about it and then they fucked that idea out the window. God, Skull was one ugly motherfucker. He vain as all hell too. Remember that portrait he had?”

Steve rolled his eyes so hard it hurt. “God,  _ that _ thing.”

“Finding that damn thing was the highlight of the war. I remember holding it as we all howled with laughter, crying with it. You took a paintbrush to it, remember?” Bucky snickered. 

“Monocle and mustache,” Steve agreed, grinning. “Did you know that it’s still around?”

Bucky looked at him with wide eyes. “What?! No!”

“It’s in the Smithsonian,” Steve reported. “Tony told me. I didn’t believe him, but it’s there!” They burst out laughing, leaning against each other. Apparently, it was part of a miscellaneous collection dedicated to WWII, captioned with some nonsense about the Howling Commandos defacing it in 1945. Charlie came up to sniff at them and Steve turned his attention to petting the dog.

“Hey, there pal. How ya doin’?” Steve smiled, putting Charlie's head in his hands and ruffling his thick fur. “Go play.” Charlie bounded away, chasing a butterfly.

“We should make a plan,” Bucky said reasonably and pulled a little notebook and pen from his pocket.

“Where’d you get those?” Steve asked.

“I pulled ‘em outta my ass,” Bucky said dryly. “No, I got ‘em at Target. If I don’t know something, I write it down and look it up later. Anyway, furniture.”

“I gotta start doin’ that,” Steve mused. 

“Can you…”

“Mm hmm.” Steve held the book against Bucky’s knee and cleared his throat. “Couch, coffee table, loveseat, chair,” Steve listed absently as Bucky scribbled it down. “TV stand. We need a TV too. Bookcase. Dining room set.”

“We should get beds.”

“We haven’t used beds in years,” Steve pointed out. “What’s the point of buyin’ if we ain’t gonna use ’em?”

“Guest room,” Bucky clarified. “And we’ll sleep in the master bath. Plus, for appearances. Maybe we’ll get used to it? And I’m not fuckin’ you in a tub.”

Steve gave Bucky a look and then rolled his eyes. He had a point, but… “Anyway, we gotta get sturdy stuff. No glass table for us. Tony can do glass all he wants, we’d break it one way or another.”

“Clumsy ol’ men,” Bucky joked. “We need kitchen appliances.”

“We need to go grocery shopping too,” Steve sighed. “God, this is too domestic. We should just buy rations or something and camp in the backyard.”

Bucky laughed. “I can order a few pizzas,” Bucky offered, chuckling. “C’mon, we have a house! Let’s celebrate.”

“Yeah, yeah for sure,” Steve said, smiling. “After that trip, I’m starved.”

After decimating six pizza’s and a two-liter of soda in their backyard on the blanket they brought, they got out Bucky’s little book again and continued putting things they needed on it. By the light of a battery-powered lantern, they munched on the crusts of the pizza and considered what else they might need.

Steve eyed the page, fingers threaded together and propped up on his elbows. “Y’know, we don’t gotta make all the rooms look right.”

“What’d’ya mean?”

“I mean, we can just furnish the living room, kitchen, bathrooms, and the guest bedroom. For appearances. The rest of it can be anything. It doesn’t have to… y’know, be like everybody else's. Right? It’s there to suit us, not anybody else.”

Bucky looked at the paper again and propped his head up on his chin.

“I want one of the rooms to be my art room,” Steve said. “So we can throw out the second guest room. It can be your office too, just split it down the center. And for our room we can just have a pull out bed and use the space how we want. Like, a tent. Put it up if we wanna,” he said. “I mean, we ain’t getting the same tent we had back when, but some camping stuff might be nice. Share a cot.”

Bucky was nodding along to his words. “Yeah, yeah. Okay, so-” he scribbled out a few items. “We also got the guns. We gotta get storage. Safes. We need a couple accessible, but not the automatics.”

“The basement can be a gym. Punching bags and stuff. Weights. But not normal weights. Get the good ones from SHIELD.”

“We should get some deck stuff. Table, chairs.”

“We gotta match colors if we do. White would be okay.”

“You’ll need an ashtray or two,” Bucky mused. “And no smoking inside.”

“If you say so,” Steve quipped and then had a brilliant idea. He kept it for himself because he’d have to look some stuff up first.

Bucky shifts over and leans all his weight on Steve’s back, making Steve squawk and fall from his elbows to his stomach out of surprise. Bucky laughed and Charlie licked Steve’s face. This devolved into a tickling fest in which Steve pushed Bucky, straddled him, and ran his hands up and down Bucky’s sides as he gasped and shrieked with laughter.

Later, when Bucky was snoring softly in the tub they called their bed, Steve patted his hand against the side of the tub, looking for his pants. Charlie used this to lick Steve’s hand. Finding the pants, he pulled out his phone and carefully did a little reading. Hmm. His idea might have to wait until later. He’d need some stuff first. He put his phone back and snuggled back under the covers, sighing in contentment.

Bucky clearly heard that in his sleep because his arm tightened around Steve, kind of pulling him under a little more, to which Steve made a tiny frightened-rabbit noise.

Then there was silence and a lack of movement again. Steve rolled his eyes, internally already arguing with Bucky for treating him like a teddy bear as he drifted off.


	2. Oniochalasia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oniochalasia: Buying or shopping as a method of stress relief or relaxation.

Shopping for new things was an experience, to say the least. They had no damn clue what to buy exactly, they just had a name on Bucky’s little notebook.  Bucky, in his ‘disguise’ (glasses and a slightly different hairstyle with his prosthetic), reads off the first thing on their list.

“A couch.”

They were in a decent sized furniture store, so a new couch could be any of fifty brands and colors and Steve was the opposite of ready for that. Moderately overwhelmed, Steve grabbed his phone and dialed a number.

_ “Yeah?” _ Tony answered.

“Where the hell are you supposed to buy stuff for houses?” Steve asked, incredulously gesturing around himself and then putting his hand on his hip.

_ “Um. Lemme think. Like, furniture for a whole house? That’s what’s up, right? You got a little place in DC?” _

“Yeah.”

_ “I’d try IKEA. It’s a furniture store. Really big. There's one in… Somewhere over there. JARVIS, send Cap the address of the closest IKEA.” _

_ “Sent, sir.” _

_ “Okay, they give you a little packet and you write the number of the piece of furniture you want and you buy it packaged up near the checkout. Like, Oh I like couch A56 and then you continue on your way and buy the boxed version at the end of the tour. You’ll want to bring like, a moving truck. A big one. Trust me. You’ll see. Also, try their meatballs. There’s a food court. I buy meatballs from there all the time because it’s so good. Oh, and you’ll need to assemble the furniture too, that’s how it fits in the boxes, but they come with instructions. It isn’t too hard if you pay attention.” _

“Uh, thanks.” Most of what Tony said made sense and what didn’t could be figured out when they got there. Bucky put his chin on Steve’s head and looped his arm around Steve’s neck. A woman walked past, glancing their way and then going on hers. (Steve was honestly still a little surprised that they could be affectionate like this in public. He still tensed around cops.)

_ “Yep, no problem. It might be a bit of a drive, but it’s worth it, trust me. Have fun, Bond.” _

“Bond?” Steve asked, confused. 

“Who?” Bucky muttered, hearing both sides of the conversation and still being as confused as Steve. 

_ “... Are you serious? Okay, there’s a line of spy movies that are really popular. James Bond movies. You need to watch them. Look, I gotta go, Pepper is here and she needs me to do and thing, and yeah, bye, talk to you later.” _

Tony hung up. Steve pulled the phone from his ear. “Tony says to go to IKEA.”

“What’s that?”

Steve showed his messages, a new text displaying an address. “It’s a furniture store, I guess. It’s here.”

Bucky shrugged. “Might as well. Tony knows how to make a place look nice. Tony’s the kinda guy that likes living in luxury.”

Steve clicked on the address and it opened up to GPS. He squinted at the screen. “That’s a distance, but he says it’s worth it.”

Bucky nodded. “Let’s just get enough to survive for a day then. Shower stuff or and food.”

“Just buy a rationed amount, it’ll last,” Steve says, looking up where they could get a moving truck as they left. He’s still making plans when they get to Target. Bucky is silent for a second so Steve glances up and realizes that they’ve wandered into the food section, specifically, baking.

“Hey, sugar,” Bucky says, a gleeful smile on his face holding a similarly labeled pouch out. He winks flirtatiously. “You rationed?”

Steve bursts out laughing.

 

* * *

 

Luckily, it was easy to get a moving truck and the drive to IKEA was actually pretty easy going. They bought snacks and the like along the way and Charlie was calm during the drive. He sat in the space at Bucky’s feet and chewed on his rope toy, making snuffly noises while trying to rip it up.

Steve drove and he felt small behind the wheel. Not surprising, but he noticed a few people double take on the road. “No different than a tank. Just gotta keep an eye out for the back,” Steve explained. “We’re just about as high up. A little thinner, little longer, but same difference.”

Bucky nodded in understanding. “Dorito?” he offered the bag.

“Yeah,” Steve stuck his hand inside and pulled out a couple.

“I kinda like the Cheetos more, but these got a good flavor.”

“Yeah, no, I understand. It’s your fault for eatin’ all those first though. I’m just sayin’.”

“An’ I’m just sayin’ we coulda gotten more.”

After a while, Bucky cleared his throat. “Shame we had to leave the tank in New York though.”

“Real shame. But Tony’ll keep it safe until we have use for it. Rosie’s in good hands with him, I believe.”

“Yeah. Nice guy.”

 

* * *

 

“Is it a god damn warehouse?” Steve blurted as he tried to find a parking spot. The-  _ store _ \- was enormous. Towering. It took up a whole block and hundreds of people seemed to be there, coming or going. “We’re gonna get fuckin’ lost in that thing.” He gestured aggressively at the nonsense before him.

“Maybe they have maps,” Bucky suggested.

“I’d need a fuckin’  _ star chart _ to navigate that, Jesus Christ.” Bucky chuckled and nodded towards an area they could use. “Oh thank god, I thought I woulda had to start rammin’ people to get anywhere.”

“We can’t just  _ kill _ people,” Bucky said, gesturing to the mobs.

“I wasn’t gonna. I was just gonna give ‘em a little push. This is insanity.”

Inside was exactly how Tony described it. The room section was stocked with beds, chairs, tables, desks, and everything anyone could need. Bucky and Steve worked at their little sheet of paper until everything was crossed off their list. They got the stuff for a nice generic guest bedroom, two pull out bed-couches, a desk for Bucky and a smaller one for Steve. Steve was planning to have a drawing table, so a big desk wasn’t necessary. They got a simple dining room table, a coffee table, a loveseat, a few chairs and everything they could possibly need. There were foot lockers which suited their gun purposes fine, floor lights, and a miscellaneous slew of things they wanted but didn’t need.

The prices made them want to die a little, but inflation was what it was and they just tried not to think about it, just remembered that whatever they wanted, they could afford.

Charlie had a great time because Bucky snuck him meatballs. The food court was really impressive. They did, of course, only buy what a regular person would buy so it was like sampling the products rather than really eating, but Bucky did convince Steve to also get a bag of frozen meatballs for home.

To be honest, the amount of people put Steve on edge. He knows that he doesn’t really have to worry about anyone. Who would recognize him? But feels exposed. He feels like a Nazi is going to come flying out of nowhere with a pocket knife and try to stab him in the throat. All he’s got is two knives and a pistol tucked into his waistband. He left the shield at home.

“Is that it?” Steve asked. 

“Ye... yep.” Bucky nodded, squinting at his little book. “That’s it. Everything is crossed off. We got the furniture and everything. Hold this pal?” Charlie held Bucky’s notebook in his teeth carefully. Bucky looked at the booklet they were given. ”Thanks. Okay, so we got the couches and beds, that’s the most important. The living room stuff is set. We have the dining set, chairs n’ all. We can get kitchen appliances at one of those electronics stores. The dresser, desks, nightstands, even if we don’t use ‘em, bookcase, a place to keep the automatics and stuff. TV stand. We also got the outside stuff, of course.”

Steve went through his mind, trying to figure out if that was all they needed.

“It feels like we’re missing something,” he admits. 

Bucky gently takes his book from Charlie and wipes dog spit off the cover. He flips it open and shows Steve. Steve eyes the page, seeing that everything was indeed crossed off.

“Hmm. Well, okay, let's go pick it up and put it in the truck then.” They walked through the busy area toward the checkout and monstrous warehouse full of furniture all packed up and ready to go. Something caught Steve’s eye and he grabbed Bucky’s shoulder. “I’ve got it!” He jogged over and brandished the item. “Dog bed!”

Bucky laughed in delight.

They haggled over prices again when they put the packaged bed on the cart, but eventually put it to rest after discussing their bank account in grumbled French. They did have a problem at one point; they couldn’t find the mattress for the bed in the guest bedroom.

Steve made Bucky wait with Charlie and went to find an employee.

“Eh, excusez-moi?” Steve said, adopting a French accent. 

She looked over and smiled widely. “Hi! How can I help you?” she asked. 

“My partner and I, we were looking for a specific mattress but cannot find it. Can you help?” Steve asked, focusing on his accent. It was good practice and he was always a little worried someone would recognize his voice.

“Sure!” she says cheerily. “Can you give me it’s number?”

Steve showed his paper and she pointed him in the right direction.


	3. Guanxi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guanxi: A network of social connections based on mutual trust and the balancing of debts by returning favors so that the relationship's benefits are shared by all.

Getting the stuff in the truck and back home was a piece of cake. Not thinking about the price tag on all of that was harder. Building the damn stuff? Impossible. Give Steve a gun to reassemble any day. This? Was hell.

“We should have listened to Tony,” Steve cursed as he lost another screw or something. He patted his hand around and eventually found it farther than it reasonably should have. They were  _ teleporting _ .

Bucky seemed to be having a better time because he could get Charlie to hold things for him. “You’re gettin’ meatballs and pretzels later, pal. Thanks for the hand.” He rubbed Charlie's head.

But, despite initial difficulties and accusations of stealing the tools, they got it all put together and in a good place within two days. They looked out at their handiwork and high fived. The house looked much better. Everything was finished, except the appliances and minor things that they needed to go out and get, toaster, blender, a few other food things, Steve’s drawing table, and junk to fill the drawers throughout the house. Luckily, they had brought the books and other nonsense from the SHIELD base in New York, so that all got put away and books stacked on the shelf in the living room.

“It’s almost like we’re normal people,” Bucky commented, amazed, and Steve laughed.

The next day they went out and bought electronics. TV, stereo, a record player, all the kitchen stuff, a DVD player, a couple of floodlights, speakers for the TV and an iPod dock. A lot of what they bought was made by Stark Industries, actually, because it was some of the best on the market. When Steve texted such to Tony, he got a bunch of excited/pleased emojis.

Bucky bought about sixteen movies that were on sale because they needed to watch modern TV sometime. He made sure to get the ones that seemed well know, though, because they might have ended up getting something stupid from this century. Steve got a few of the James Bond movies Tony suggested.

After setting everything up and starting up a kids movie called Despicable Me, Natasha texted.

_ -I’m coming over.- _

~What? why?~

_ -I wanna see what you did with the place. ETA 10 min. :P- _

Steve rolled his eyes and she picked the door lock, letting herself in. “You should get more locks,” she said right off the bat. Charlie planted himself at the end of the couch and boofed lightly in warning to tell them there was a person approaching. 

“Wow, nice job,” she said looking around, impressed. She dropped her bag by the couch and went back to lock the door.

“Thanks for breaking in and complementing our hard work, Nat,” Steve said dryly.

She flopped over the loveseat, shoving a pillow under her to prop herself up. “Oh hey, Clint loves this movie.”

“Yeah? It’s good,” Steve said. “Amazing what they’ve done with animation. It practically looks real.”

Natasha blinked slowly. “After this, we’re watching Avatar.”

“Why? What’s that about?”

“Aliens. But it doesn’t have evil aliens. It’s pretty cool,” she shrugged. “You’ll like it.”

Steve nodded and shrugged. “Hey, you want a beer or something?”

“Sure. What do you have?”

“Couple Bud Light's, an IPA or two, and there's vodka somewhere in the freezer.”

“Believe it or not, I may be Russian, but I would like an IPA better than vodka.”

“Sure.” Steve stood, stretching. “Hungry?”

“Nah, I got tacos on the way here.”

Avatar was pretty amazing. It kind of made Steve want to draw aliens for a while. He likes the idea of intelligent life on other planets that didn’t want to kill humans (unless the humans were imperializing  _ scum _ .) 

Natasha took the guest bedroom that night and ate their oatmeal in the morning. “You should get internet and cable TV. Trust me on this.”

“We’re going to get internet, Nat. We’ve got computers and things that need internet,” Steve pointed out, putting a plate of waffles in front of Bucky, who was sleepily looking at the newspaper Steve went out and bought at the nearby gas station. Bucky pulled Steve’s collar down to kiss him on the cheek, then went back to what he was doing. “We’re just finishing up with furnishing and getting it all together before we get any of that installed.”

“Good,” she says. “Because I’ve hacked your neighbors' internet to tell Clint that the room service here is good but the internet sucks.”

Steve gave her a mildly disapproving, mildly impressed look.

“I’m making a list of sites you need to check out and/or get accounts on. Pandora will introduce you to a lot of modern music for example. Twitter so people can know what you’re doing and stuff. Maybe a Tumblr. Social media,” she explains. “SHIELD kind of blocked some things on its internet because people kept using it for personal things while working. But when you get internet it won’t be blocked.”

Steve nodded in understanding and took a bite of Bucky’s syrup slathered waffle.

Natasha grinned. “I’ll set up the accounts and get Tony to get a verification for your twitter account then. That means you’re the real deal online. Like, people can say that they’re Iron Man or whatever on Twitter, but without the verification, people know that they’re not.”

“Like an ID?”

“Sort of, yeah,” she agreed. “I’ll get one for Barnes too.”

“Eh,” Bucky mumbled tiredly.

“Okay, but warning, anything you put or write on the internet is there forever, so be careful with what you put up,” she stressed. “One wrong word or slip up will bite you in the ass. Hard.”

Steve nodded as he filled up Charlie's water bowl with fresh water. Not unusual. That’s kind of how media functions. 

“I checked out your neighbors. Only the one on the end of the street has a history of crime and it was just stealing as a minor, so you’ll be good,” she adds.

“Did you- Nat that’s an invasion of privacy,” Steve says, blinking at her.

She gives him a dry look. “Steve we are spies.”

“Yeah, we spy on actual criminal organizations, Nat, not regular people.”

“Regular people can be part of criminal organizations,” she points out and then shrugs. “But you have a good neighborhood, so.”

“Thanks, Nat,” Steve says honestly. “I like it here. I have no idea what I’m doin’, but I like it. I’m getting close to finishing my graphic novel too,” he adds. “I’m about half done.”

“Hey, that’s great,” she says as she smiles. “And you said Bucky was going to get a bar?”

“We’re not quite there yet, but Bucky’s been texting Tony about properties and suggestions, so maybe soon,” Steve said enthusiastically. He suddenly laughed self-deprecatingly. “It’s almost like we’re people,” Steve said. “Doing people things.”

Natasha nodded in understanding. “More than some get,” she pointed out. “Clint and I are SHIELD 24/7.”

Steve looked at her. “Do you want to do something else?”

She shrugged. “I’m not sure. I like my job. It’s all I’ve ever done. I don’t know.”

Steve nodded, understanding completely. “Well, once everything is up and running, I’m sure Bucky won’t mind you coming to wait tables if you want to. Or do you know how to mix drinks? You could bartend too. Bring Clint if you want to.

She smiled. “Sure.”

Bucky left to take a shower and Steve watched him go. 

“Do you have anything I could use to break into the White House?” Steve asks lowly, once Bucky was out of earshot.

She grinned in glee and pulled no less than three thin devices from various places on her person and enthusiastically explained what they did and how they worked.

Natasha left around noon to get to the SHIELD base for a meeting, advising him to visit the training rooms at the Triskelion. Steve set up a hammock in the backyard between the two trees they had and he and Bucky took a decent nap as birds chirped in the branches above them, Charlie snored under the hammock and Steve felt like he was home.

 

* * *

 

Later that day, Bucky burst into laughter down the hall. Curious of what sparked that reaction, he climbed off the couch and to the hall where Bucky was bent over still laughing full force.

“What’s happened?”

Bucky gestures to Charlie, who’s halfway down the stairs and wagging his tail like mad. He looks happy and excited. “C-c’mere Charlie!” Bucky manages and Steve watches as Charlie bounces from step to step like he forgot to walk down them, he had to go down one hop at a time.

It looks hilarious. He was jumping like a little frog! A prancy little fluff ball!

“When did he start doing that?” Steve wheezed.

“I dunno! Just now? Oh god, he looks so adorable!”

At last, Charlie is down the stairs and excitedly sniffing at Bucky’s pants. “You’re such a good boy, Charlie, yes you are! The best! Good dog! Good dog!” Bucky enthused.


	4. Rantipole

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rantipole: A wild, reckless young person. To be wild and reckless.

That night, Steve drove his motorcycle to a secluded alley and parked it behind a trashcan. He was only a few blocks from the White House and could easily run that distance if it came to it. He activated the slew of devices Nat gave him and started walking. He was wearing a black hoodie that was still huge on his frame despite it being a men's small with his balaclava. He wore his uniform pants, goggles, and boots though, and only brought knives, though he wasn’t planning to use them.

The streets were only illuminated by streetlights and almost nobody was around. When he was standing just outside the fence, he put on his goggles and got to work.

One: distraction. He had a really loud noisemaker in his pocket and there was a bush right there inside the fence. He would toss it and then walk calmly to the space where the secret back entrance was. He’d jump the fence, put the automatic lock pick to the door and play a game of catch for a while.

He was wearing a cloaking device on his arm to make him invisible to video cameras and Natasha had given a prototype that rendered him invisible to night vision goggles. Roof snipers beware.

He tossed the noisemaker and moved.

Ten minutes later he’s doing an upside down split, toes on the wall as Secret Service Agents run down the hall under him. He takes a selfie, putting up the peace sign. It’s a brilliant picture, really. The agents under him, oblivious, his goggles, the peace sign. He sends it to Bucky.

 

* * *

 

_@sniperpiper_

Fun Fact: being a spy means 'it's not illegal if you don't get caught' true. P.S. WH needs better security. #souvenir

_(Picture of a slim hand in a black glove holding two ashtrays with the White House symbol up against a white background.)_

 

_ @J.Barnes1917 _

god dammit  @sniperpiper you  _ fucking _ idiot

 

_@sniperpiper_

 @J.Barnes1917 Are you mad?

 

_ @J.Barnes1917 _   
YES, @sniperpiper. YOU SLEEP OUTSIDE. RECKLESS PUNK.

 

 

_ @BarackObama _

I would like to thank  @sniperpiper for the doodle he left me. My security asks that you don’t do it again, however.

_ (Image of a sticky note with a cartoon version of the Captain saluting attached to the desk of the Oval Office. A tiny scribble on the bottom says ‘Thanks Obama.’) _

 

_ @J.Barnes1917 _

Not Fun Fact: You can’t lock your dumbass spy out of the house b/c they  _ pick the fuckin locks _ .

 


	5. Yuputka

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuputka: the phantom sensation of something crawling on your skin.

They have a walk-in closet. Bucky’s stuff takes up maybe a fourth of it. He has simple tastes and only three identities. Real, real-but-modified, and false, the name that Bucky lived under. Bucky now went by Chris Beck and was an American who had lived in France for about ten years, having first came there on an exchange program for college and then deciding to stay. 

Steve, on the other hand, took up the rest of the closet because each of his identities had a different style. Six whole people. Two were him, of course, so he had things that he liked, but he also had four others. 

Stefan Schneider, a man who served in the German military, was the first. He was heavily based on Erskine, Steve would admit. Stefan is from Augsburg, Germany, and moved here with Chris after they fell in love in Paris. He was the one Steve is going to be for the most part, for company and such. Because he was going to be Stefan, he could also just wear what he liked. He did have round spectacles and hair that was more slicked back, but the rest was the same.

Alex “Mayhem” Zimmerman was a New York punk through and through, with dyed hair and leather jackets with short spikes on the shoulders and black boots with purple laces. He has several band T-shirts and the stuff for quick piercings in the jacket pocket. A needle and a lighter. Painful, but efficient and would heal. Skinny jeans in dark colors, a red tank top, two cans of spray on hair dye. Blue headphones. He also had a chain choker. It was a good look.

Benji “Ben” Tanner was basically the Clark Kent to his Superman. Awkward, nerdy, thick glasses, button ups, khakis, and simple off-brand shoes in respectable colors. He had a satchel and was from Paris, so he spoke fluent French. He moved from France about five years ago, after graduating from college to work in an accounting firm. He was bad at small talk, Steve had decided, and put his foot in his mouth all the time.

Mary Smith was, yes, a female identity. He knew the value of using sexism to his advantage. A thin wisp of a woman is even less of a threat than a thin wisp of a man, according to most. She was from Georgia and grew up in the country, on her father's farm. He raised horses, goats, chickens, and pigs. Mary likes dresses, flat dress shoes with a neat buckle, and has a very nice yellow purse that matched with the four dresses he had. He stored the SHIELD created makeup in the purse, along with a small handgun and pepper spray. He made a very convincing woman, Bucky said, when he walked in on Steve trying everything out to make sure the outfit worked. Natasha got him bras and inserts that made it look like he did indeed have boobs.

So, Steve was set with his identities and the closet was filled.

Bucky’s disguise consisted of glasses, a baseball hat, and a light colored glove. It was a sham to everything a spy was because it  _ worked just as well  _ and Steve  _ had no idea how _ . Bucky laughed at this revelation and Steve shoved him as he cackled.

 

* * *

 

_ Steve wakes up and everything is dark. No, it’s not dark. He just can’t open his eyes. _

_ Confusion floods him. Why can’t I open my eyes? He thinks. He tries to see if there’s something blocking them, but he can’t move his hands either. Panic fills him and he senses that his breath should quicken, but it doesn’t. He isn’t breathing. Why isn’t he breathing!? _

_ That’s when the cold hit him. It’s along his spine, it’s cold tile under his feet, it’s the cold that makes his teeth feel brittle and painful and his lungs burn in contrast. He feels snow in his boots, he’s trapped in ice that digs at his skin like thousands of needles. _

_ Needles. _

_ Abruptly he can breathe and he’s gasping and panting and his knees are weak. He’s so cold. His eyes fly open and he’s in a box. No, not a box. A coffin. He can see wood and … Metal. There’s a small window, light filtering in. _

_ ‘We will proceed.’ _

_ Erskine? _

_ Then there’s agony splitting his cells and he’s screaming, his hands are burning off, his feet are ash and the fire burns up his legs and down his arms until there’s nothing but light and pain. He can feel death in the smoke in his lungs and the blood flowing from his nose and ears and eyes. His crooked spine snaps with a sickening noise, like a cracking tree and his scream becomes a shriek as his mind boils in his skull and- _

Steve gasps awake, scrambling out of the heat around him and over the lip of the tub. The tub? Why was there a tub, he was just burning up, he was just boiling in his skin he was just- He falls to the cold tile on his hands and knees, gasping and wheezing and closing his eyes as the phantom sensation of fire under his skin rolls over him in waves.

“Steve?” Bucky asks, groggy and worried at the same time.

No, Steve is in a lab, he’s surrounded by scientists he’s-

He’s at home, gasping and wheezing on the bathroom floor, his useless legs tangled underneath him and hands flat against the cold tile. There’s something soft touching his hand and it takes him a second to realize it’s Charlie's tail.

He yanks his hand away, he can’t take this,  _ he can’t take it _ -

His skin itches with hot and cold and he’s still panting and his hands keep clenching and unclenching.

“Steve.” Bucky reaches out and Steve snaps a hand up to stop him.

“No, no, don’t- don’t touch me-” he grits out. “I just- I just need a minute.”

He just needs a minute to think. He’s home. Where is home? Brooklyn? No, no, that’s not right. He’s in DC. He’s in Washington DC. He’s in the bathroom, where he and Bucky sleep. Charlie is in front of him, carefully watching him and gently whining every now and then.

It’s… Monday? No, Wednesday. It’s 1945. No, it’s not, it 2014. He’s in the future. His name is Steven Grant Rogers. He’s the Captain. He fought in World War II. He works for SHIELD. Bucky is beside him. 

Bucky is anxiously watching him as he goes over everything in his head again.

Steve’s touching cold tile. The pain echoing over him isn’t real. He’s fine. It’s over. It’s gone. He’s fine. He can feel the icy tile under his hands. That’s real. He focuses on the cold and feels it through the thin material of his sleep pants as well as his palms.

His breathing is normalizing. He is no longer panting, just taking irregular breaths as he tries to gather his scrambled mind. He opens his eyes and looks over at Bucky.

“Steve?” Bucky asks in a small careful voice.

“Yeah. Sorry. Sorry,” he mumbles and puts his hand on the edge of the tub and Bucky puts his hand over his.

“Don’t apologize. You had a nightmare. You can’t control that.”

“Yeah. Sorry. I mean- I just- I.” Steve stops and lets out a breath. “I need a smoke.”

“Okay. I can… come out with you, if you want.”

“Sure,” Steve sighed. “Help me up?”

“Okay,” Bucky says agreeably, starting to climb out of the tub. “I can do that. Let me put my arm on. I can use a midnight snack too, right? Like how we used to when you slept over at my house?”

“Except we were piss poor so a snack was splitting a piece of fruit and a small one at that,” Steve adds, trying to smile and failing completely. He sighs and puts his hands over his face, wiping his eyes and brushing his sweaty hair back.

“At least the bananas weren’t fucked up. Can’t even look at ‘em now.” Bucky finally got his arm on, now shirtless and with its usual straps over his chest and the sensors around his stump like a sleeve. He held out his flesh hand to Steve and Steve let him help him up. Steve grabbed his stuff off the bedside table in their room and together, with Charlie on their heels, they went downstairs and out back.

Bucky flipped on the light and sat Steve in one of the chairs there.

“I’ll be right back,” he promised, and kissed the side of Steve’s head, vanishing inside.

Steve absently packed his pipe and lit it with a match, puffing a few times to really light the tobacco. Once that was settled, he put everything on the table and closes his eyes, sighing and tilting his head back as he absently pets Charlie’s head. He kind of wished Charlie wasn’t so damn nice because Steve knew smoke wasn’t actually good for anybody, including dogs, especially now that he knew it could cause lung cancer. Well, he was pretty certain he couldn’t get that, but still.

Bucky came out with two grilled cheese sandwiches, clearly made in the weird sandwich press machine Bucky bought. He also had two glasses of apple juice. He motioned for Steve to stand and then sat in the same place Steve was when he did so. Steve gave him a look, but Bucky motioned for Steve to sit again and after some finagling, they were both comfortable. Steve was on Bucky’s lap, alternating bites of sandwich with puffs of smoke. Not the best combination, but he could care less at this point. Bucky wrapped his right arm around Steve’s shoulders and used his prosthetic to eat.

Steve took a sip of apple juice and noted the dash of vodka. He sighed in relief and finished half in one satisfied gulp, savoring the apple flavor.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Steve mumbled, feeling tired again, but unwilling to sleep.

“Care to tell a fella what rattled ya so much?” Bucky rubbed his thumb over a patch of Steve’s skin soothingly.

Steve was unable to find the words for a moment. He didn’t really want to say, but he had no reason not to. “You ever think about how we were stuck in that ice?”

“Not often, when I can.”

Steve considered his words and took a drag. “We were frozen through. Every cell in our bodies. Our blood, hearts, organs, brains. Stuck still and traveling through time. You ever think how long seventy years is? And we were just… waiting. For someone to find us. If they didn’t we still would be waiting, still and silent. I dreamed I was in the ice, unable to move, breath, open my eyes, and with the pain that comes with ice and snow and the cold. 

“Then it was gone and I was in the chamber again and I was on fire. I was turning to ash. And it… just...burnt me up,” he finished, feeling numb to his words. He felt the shuddering feeling roll over him again. He trembled a bit and felt pathetic that he trembled against sensations that weren’t real. 

Bucky’s arm tightened around him a bit. “That… that sounds awful, Steve,” he said, voice pained and raw with honesty. “You’re okay, I’ve got you.”

Bucky hugged him close and that let Steve  _ breathe _ . “Won’t let nothing hurt you while I’m around,” Bucky said firmly.

He was safe. Steve put his down his stuff and wrapped his arms around Bucky.

After a second Bucky mumbled lowly. “ _ Do you hear me? I’m talkin’ to you. Across the water, across the deep blue ocean, under the open sky, oh my, baby I’m tryin.’” _

Steve sighed, closing his eyes and listening to Bucky sing.

“ _ Boy, I hear you in my dreams. I feel your whisper across the sea. I keep you with me in my heart. You make it easier when life gets hard. Oh, I'm lucky I'm in love with my best friend, lucky to have been where I have been, lucky to be coming home again _ .” 


	6. Strikhedonia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Strikhedonia: The pleasure of being able to say 'to hell with it'

Steve hangs up two flags in front of their house on either sides of the steps up to their porch. On the supports keeping the overhang up, he installs an American flag and the rainbow pride flag. It looks nice. It really does. It gives a nice balance. The flags aren’t overly obstructive and they take up a perfect amount of space and maintain symmetry.

“That’s…” Bucky says, putting his false hand on his hip. The prosthetic was half metal and half plactic, the fingers were had rubber pads and the palm was the same rubber substance. Sometimes Steve liked to draw the arm because he liked the robotic way it looked. “-really gay.”

Steve turns to look at him. “Wow, thank you so much for that,” he says in reply. “You’re such a jerk. Let’s go inside.” Bucky takes his hand and they go to eat lunch. Leftover spaghetti and meatballs from last night.

 

* * *

 

_@sniperpiper_

Why did nobody tell me about born this way by lady gaga, that was a mistake

 

_ @sniperpiper _

I’m using it as _@youknowwhoiam_ ’s ringtone because I think it fits him.

 

_ @youknowwhoiam _

Honestly, I’m flattered. Your’s is ‘Secret Agent Man.’

 

 

 

* * *

 

The next day, after Steve got Bucky his paper and Steve watched Bucky slowly drop off into a nap on the loveseat (which was amazing, it was like those videos of animals falling asleep while sitting up) he heard a knock at the door.

He didn’t remember inviting anyone. Maybe it was Clint. Nat said she had texted him the location of their new house just in case Clint needed a place to crash. He wasn’t sure though. Nat would have warned him at least.

He saved the page on his book and quickly padded over. He looked through the peephole and frowned. It was a woman he didn’t recognize. He mustered up his German accent, pushed up his glasses and let out a breath. He put his hand on the gun in his belt and opened the door slightly, enough that he blocked the way. “Guten tag,” he greeted. “May I help you, madam?”

She blinked in mild surprise. “Hello,” she said, a little slowly, a little loud. It was a common occurrence when he adopted the accent. People always though he barely knew any English and tried to help him. “I’m Kathy Marlow. I live next door?” She pointed to the house to Steve’s left. 

He nodded, “Stefan Schneider,” he said in reply. “It is nice to meet you.” There’s something off about her. This is making him uneasy.

“Nice to meet you too,” she said. “I came over mostly to give you a ‘welcome-to-the-neighborhood’ gift from my husband and me,” she said that last part with a little emphasis that made Steve narrow his eyes. She held a cheap Tupperware container with something orange inside. Maybe mashed sweet potato or something, by the first look. “Sorry I didn’t come over sooner. Family stuff and work. You know how it is.”

Steve hummed in agreement.

Charlie wandered over and started sniffing at Steve’s pants and outside. He made a curious noise when he spotted/smelled Kathy and then sneezed, boofing slightly and sort of grumbling. Not growling, exactly, but a displeased noise.

“Avay vith you,” Steve said, letting go of the gun and putting a hand on Charlie. “Go find Chris.” Charlie did as instructed and Steve looked back at Kathy. “Vell, danke,” he said slowly, taking it from her offering hands. “I appreciate it.”

“It’s carrot pudding-”  _ oh gross why _  “-A family recipe,” she continued.

“Hm! Sounds good,” he lies. As stereotypical as it was, he would like potatoes much more than pudding. Mashed potatoes, sweet or regular. Carrots didn’t do it for him and  _ pudding wasn’t supposed to be a vegetable. _

“And, um, I don’t want to sound rude-” Here it is. Let’s see what she has for him. “-But could you take down  _ -that _ \- flag?” she sort of points without looking at it. She points, of course at the pride flag.

“No,” he says bluntly. He wants to close the door in her face with his final word, but that would be even ruder than she was being.

She winces. “It’s just that there are kids in this neighborhood, including my own, and I don’t want them getting the wrong idea,” she says defensively.

“I’m sorry, did you just imply zat homosexuality is a ‘vrong idea?’” he says, mildly incredulous. He was allowed to be. This identity was him with the accent. He could call out bullshit and draw attention to himself a little bit. “Chris!” he calls over his shoulder. Nothing. “ _ Chris! _ ”

Bucky swears and stumbled off the couch in the background, picking up his pace and appearing at Steve’s side.

“What’s wrong? Are you okay? Who’s this? What’s happening?” Bucky asks, hair ruffled from sleep and unfocused eyes blinking at him. He had the mind to put on his glasses though, so that was good. He puts his prosthetic hand on Steve’s shoulder defensively and his other hand on his chest like he was ready to pull him back.

“Too many questions, meine liebe. Zis woman is asking zat we take down our flag.” He gave his voice a pointed tilt and looked at Bucky blandly over the tops of his glasses.

Bucky blinks at her and says. “Yeah, we ain’t doin’ that, sorry ma’am.”

“But the kids,” she said. “I might make them- you know-!”

“A flag vill not make your children queer,” Steve said bluntly. “Zat is like saying that if a man vears pink he is a voman.”

“Pink is a womans color,” she says.

“Fraulein… it is a color,” Steve says slowly. That wasn’t even counting how pink used to be for boys and blue for girls before Hitler flipped that switch in a full 360 when he labeled gay concentration camp prisoners with the pink triangle. “You are failing to make any sense. Frankly, it just seems zat you are homophobic.”

“It makes the neighborhood look bad,” she says fiercely, like she knows better.

His face goes blank and he hears Bucky telling him that something is a bad idea in alarm bells in the back of his head. “Your clashing outfit makes this neighborhood look worse than ve do and your husband looks like he had his personality repossessed.”

She looks deeply offended and self-conscious. Bucky coughs to cover up a sputtering pained laugh and ducks away. “Why,” he wheezes.

Steve realizes he is still holding the stupid fucking carrot pudding and holds it out.

“I do not vant your carrot pudding of intolerance. I do not even vant to feed it to my dog.” He holds it out and she takes it out of surprise. “I am bisexual, Chris is gay, ve are very much in love vith each other, and if a child is curious about our flag, ve vill explain to them what being queer is and make sure that, if zey are queer, you do not make them ashamed of themselves.”

Steve pulls Bucky back by his belt and nods firmly. “Good day.”

The door shuts loudly.

“Ze neighbors are assholes,” Steve says firmly. “Zis is brilliant. Zis is all I ever wanted; someone to resent for their morals wizout physically fighting zem.”

Bucky tries to muffle his laughter with his hands and mostly fails.

 

* * *

 

_ @sniperpiper _

One of these days I’m going to replace every flag in the White House with pride flags just to piss off homophobes. Waitin’ for April fools.

_ (Image of a pride flag) _

 

* * *

 

The next day someone knocks on the door again.

Steve tips his head back and prays that it isn’t Kathy. He stands, more or less climbing off Bucky and stretches. Bucky yawns. “Shout if you need somethin’,” he mutters and pulls the blanket back over himself.

Steve cautiously answers the door. A woman stands there, but it isn’t Kathy. She’s wearing neat and stylish punk clothing, like what Steve has in his closet, but it’s less forceful, more like just what her personality is, not a statement. She has a bull nose piercing and gauges and short hair in a spiky faux-hawk in dark red. She’s holding a gallon of something in her hand.

She gives him a real smile. “Hi, I’m Andy Marx, your neighbor across the street.” She holds out her hand and Steve shakes.

“Stefan Schneider,” he greets.

“So, I usually don’t do the ‘greet-new-neighbors’ thing, but yesterday my husband spotted you talking to Crazy-K so I figured it was necessary, actually.”

“Oh? Do tell,” he encourages.

“Well,” she says dryly. “He saw you reject the hell-pudding, so I figured we would be on the same page. She did the same thing for us.”

“Really!” Steve said, interested now.

“She has a problem with Marvin and my boyfriend,” she said bluntly. “Tried to get us to dump him and called us sinners, so…” She shrugged. “Queers have to stick together.”

“Zat I understand,” Steve agreed, grinning. 

“So what’d she bitch at you about?”

“Ze flag,” Steve gestured. 

“What else,” she asks rhetorically, making them both laugh. “Hey, how did you get her to leave so fast? When she came over to our place, we couldn’t get her to leave for thirty minutes.”

“I told her her outfit clashed and her husbands looked like he had his personality repossessed,” he admitted.

She started cackling. “Oh my god, you’re my favorite. Well, anyway. Here’s a housewarming gift, homegrown tea. Black tea. Unsweetened, so you can do whatever you like with it.”

“Zank you!” Steve says, actually meaning it this time. It looks good, after all, and Charlie comes up to sniff at it. “Not for you,” he childs, pulling it up. Charlie pushes past him a bit, and looks up at Andy, wagging his tail.

“Aw, he’s cute!” she says. “Can I pet him?”

“Ja, he’s not working right now, so I’m sure he’d love ze attention,” he says and watches as she coos about his fluffy face.

“He’s adorable,” she says standing. “We want a pet, but two-thirds of the house like cats, so if we get one, it’ll probably be a cat. I like cats too though, it’s just I had a lot of dogs growing up,” she added.

“You’ve been gone long, sweetheart, is it Kathy?” Bucky called from inside the house. “I can get pepper spray or something!”

Steve bowed his head, almost embarrassed and then turned. “No, it is a different neighbor, a nice one! Come say hello!”

“Coming!”

They was the scrape of the table being pushed a bit, Bucky cursing, and then he appeared behind Steve, looking over his shoulder. He smiles and waves. “Bonjour, I’m Chris.”

Oh my god, Bucky, stop, Steve thought internally. You would make a terrible spy. Absolutely terrible. He keeps a relatively straight face though.

“Andy,” she replies and sticks out her hand again. Bucky shakes firmly.

“I can get some cups for the tea and such so we can sit on the porch and talk some more wizout standing in my doorway,” Steve offers.

“Oh!” Andy says, a bit surprised. “Um, sure!”

“Chris, get settled, talk about Charlie or something and I’ll be out in a second.” Steve pushes Bucky out a bit and wanders back into the house.

By the end of the day, they’re invited to a cookout and are introduced to Andy, Mark, and Joey’s friends, so they’ve got a small community other than the Avengers and SHIELD to talk to. It’s a weight off their shoulders, really. It shows that they’re fitting in. Blending.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually have experience with conservative homophobic Christians bringing carrot pudding over as an offering before telling my parents, specifically, that because they were gay, her kids couldn't come over to play with me (we were the same age at the time, of course). Like, really. Carrot pudding of intolerance. We didn't eat it, we just threw the whole thing out, like what the hell.


	7. Eutony

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eutony: the pleasantness of a word's sound

The house slowly filled with trinkets to take up empty space. There was a lava lamp on the bathroom counter in the master that gave off a soft orange light. Bucky bought it and told Steve he was tired of fumbling in the dark to take a piss and that was all the reasoning Steve needed. It mimicked the glow of a fire, so it wasn’t obstructive after all.

Steve bought a magnet strip meant for kitchen knives and put it in the hall, high enough to avoid bumping it, but low enough to grab a blade if necessary. He had seven blades attached to it and not one for cooking.

Steve and Bucky finished up the studio/office and productivity bumped up a bit on Steve’s project. Bucky mostly looked over the paperwork Tony sent over detailing what he needed to start a business and buy the building he wanted, a little empty place in the middle of the city. Prime location, Tony said. It was only twenty minutes from home too.

“So, what’re you gonna name the place?” Steve asks when they’re both listening to Pandora while relaxing on their couch.

Bucky grinned. “The Rich Bastard.”

Steve stared at him and burst into snickers. “Okay,” Steve managed. “But, no, really, what are you gonna name it?”

“Well, I was thinking the Train Wreck, or maybe  _ Au Futur _ .”

_ ‘To the future.’  _ Steve kisses Bucky. “Very clever,” he sasses.

“Oh, is it now,” Bucky says dryly, rolling over and pinning Steve.

“Hmm,” Steve pretends to think about it. “If you don’t think about it,” he sasses again, and then delights in the slightly aggressive kisses Bucky peppers over his neck.

 

* * *

 

Steve woke up when Bucky started moving, bumping his knee against Steve’s stomach. If was that moment that he realized that he was sweating like a pig and it was really stuffy. Apparently, they had moved in their sleep and Steve was lower in the tub than before, nose to Bucky’s upper stomach.

“Where am I!” he said in mock horror.

“Oh, Jesus Christ, Steve,” Bucky swore. Steve climbed up the blankets and threw them off his head, mock gasping in fresh air to be dramatic.

“I’m alive!”

“You don’t have to be such a little shit!”

Steve started laughing and yelped when Bucky shoved him back under the blankets.

Later, when Steve was tired of some SHIELD bullshit or other and Bucky was blocking his way to the coffee machine he grabbed a knife and pointed it lazily. “Move.”

Bucky looked at him and then the knife, giving him and look and putting his hands on his hips.

“What are you gonna do, stab me?”

Steve poked him with the knife, making Bucky yelp and shift back. “If you don’t  _ move your ass _ ,” Steve growls

“Don’t come at me with a knife, what the hell!”

“It keeps you back!”

“You’d point a knife at me? Your fiance?!”

“I WANT COFFEE BUCKY.”

 

* * *

 

_ @sniperpiper _

Knives have so many helpful and constructive uses.

 

* * *

 

“I wanna get a tattoo,” Steve says after scrolling on Pinterest for an embarrassing amount of time. He’s gotten the hang of Tumblr, Pinterest, and he’s managing Twitter. He tweets about once a day and had about twenty million followers, on par with Tony.

Bucky blinks at him from behind his newspaper. “Punk says what?” They’ve set up the tent in their room and Steve’s stuck in a sleeping bag. It’s early in the morning and Steve’s got a coffee to his right, just next to Bucky’s breakfast plate.

“Jerk. You heard me. I’m thinking about getting a tattoo. Maybe a couple.”

Bucky seems to think for a minute. “What are you thinking about getting?”

“A few things,” Steve stated. “Invictus. The Howling Commando symbol, a nautical star…” Steve trails off.

“Well, buttercup,” Bucky says. “Who’s stopping you?”

Steve smiles and kisses him.

 

* * *

 

The needle barely stings. Steve can just feel the sensation of it moving across his skin. He picked one of the better-rated tattoo shops around DC, and told the artist his plans, providing his ideas and sketches. He has a colorful sword from the base of his skull down his spine. The sword is stuck through the poem ‘Invictus.’ As she works, Steve follows along with the words she spreads down his back. 

A beautifully done dove with its wings spread was latched onto the hilt and a blossoming red and orange nasturtium on the other side. The bird’s wings spread wide so a person could see feathers and some orange petals when looking face to face.

Next, on his right shoulder is the Howling Commando’s symbol; the simple golden wing with a black ring around it, rifles crossing behind it, and a wolf howling upward with a scrolled bit of paper that reads “ _ Pro libertate et non infringetur. _ ” (The fight for freedom will not be silenced.)

His other shoulder has a simple blue nautical star. He has swirling artistic bands put around his wrists with fancy Celtic knots, “ _You always stand up,”_ hidden in one and _‘Sarah Rogers’_ in the other.

He loved having a little bit of his ma on his skin, always there with him.

Additionally, he has thin neat daggers put on the inside of his forearms because he doesn’t want to forget that he is dangerous, and despite the sword on his back, he thinks that people need an additional warning even if they can’t tell that’s what it means.


	8. Tausendsassa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tausendsassa: Jack-of-all-trades; a multi-talented person

Steve’s first mission back is in Germany. The irony doesn’t escape him. He takes out a human trafficking ring from the inside, dismantling it with his bare hands in a night. Dragging the wrong-doers out to be arrested and interrogated, downing the important figures, strategizing his attacks, and burning the atrocity to the ground. He tries to keep casualties down because he wants these people to pay, but he ends up with bloody knives anyway.

After Steve escorts the victims of the ring to the EMT’s and other professionals, Natasha pulls at his collar. They’re cleaning up and Steve is dressing in civies for transportation. “Very nice,” she says, looking down his shirt. “Good colors, nice sword.”

“You think so? I like it, but-”

“No. It’s good. Just get some of the tattoo makeup from SHIELD when we get back, in case you have to go undercover.”

“Thanks,” he said smiling. 

And then he’s back home and things seem wrong for a minute.

“Stefan,” Kathy says cooly as he parks his motorcycle and climbs off, putting on his backpack. She appears to be getting her mail. “Any chance I can get you to take that thing down?”

“Fuck off, Kazy, the flag is staying,” he says passively. “Go be annoyingly heterosexual elsewhere.”

She sniffs at him and turns away. Steve noticed two small boys on her porch, staring at him with wide eyes and holding toy truck each. They seemed to be ten or eleven, though it was hard to say. A realization hits him. Rivalries are fought purely with words here. She’s just a woman who doesn’t like gay people. It’s not a crime. 

He’s, technically, a civilian in this moment and three hours ago he wasn’t.

The front door opens and Charlie bounds down the steps, tail wagging excitedly as he rushes over and stops in front of Steve.

“Ah, ‘ello Charlie! You have been a good boy, ja?” Steve says sighing out some tension, getting down on his knee and ruffling Charlie’s fur. Home. Bucky leans against the door jam on the porch and smiles at Steve, welcoming him home was open arms.

The wrong feeling continued for another week before Steve just sat down at his art table and started working again. Whenever he drew and worked on this, he felt like he was in the moment. His hand moved as he sketches himself, or, well, a version of himself. To maintain his secret identity he drew a completely plain white character with almost no features. No eyes or mouth, just a simple nose that looked perfectly generic. It looked like Rorschach without the splotches and a hell of a lot thinner.

He’s put snippets of his life on these pages, careful to use the right colors. The novel was drawn in his eyes, after all, so colorblindness was part of the color scheme for the first years. He didn’t want to show anything, really, so he drew a specific scene from his childhood, where he father smacked him around, then his mother, followed by him storming out. He outlined his medical conditions briefly and drew a few shots that were full page, like when Steve first met Bucky, after getting beat to hell in a fight. His mother's passing got one too. He drew a quick montage of himself getting knocked around in fights, briefly explaining why. One’s where he ended up being stuffed in trash cans, Bucky skidding into to the alley, having searched around to get him home safe. He drew the start of the war in America, hearing the announcement of the Pearl Harbor attack from the shitty radio in the bar, everybody’s eyes drawn to it like moths to a flame, horror on their faces. It was one of the big ones, with every detail he could cram in.

He drew quiet conversations shared between him and Bucky about the war. He drew Bucky’s draft notice. He drew every major moment he thought he needed, he drew each rejection and frantic fight in back alleys. He drew the fights about Steve attempting to join, the screaming matches and furious arguing, Bucky shaking the failed enlistment forms at him and throwing them around in his frustration. He drew Bucky clinging to him so hard at night that he left bruises to find in the morning.

All in all, his personal life took up very little of the book. That was how Steve liked it. This was about how he came to be the Captain and the missions,  _ history _ , not  _ personal history. _

He drew Bucky helping him out after his fifth rejection, dressed in his uniform. He drew the fair, his sixth attempt, and wonderful, amazing Erskine. He drew himself standing there, so small against the busy background and holding the file that would be his entire future. He drew his time at Camp Lehigh and the bullies. He drew them tying him to the flagpole. He drew that one sideways across two pages as well, including his thought process from the moment they left to the moment he finally managed to get down. He drew himself storming back with bloody feet and cuts, knocking Hodge to his ass.

He drew the grenade test.

He drew his conversation with Erskine.

He drew the big day and all the chaos that went with it. He drew his sudden fears that Howard Stark was going to be his doom, redrawing the car crashing to prove his point along with Steve starting at Howard and thinking ‘I’m going to die’ in simple text with no other explanation. He thought it had a bit of a humorous effect. Drawing the scene where he was engulfed in white was tricky because he has no way to convey how much it hurt other than with abstract shapes and colors. He simply himself floating in a great white space, everything that was color fading away to be consumed by light. He drew the pain as shattering red on his white skin and described the pain through thoughts.

He drew Erskine death. He drew it in vivid color, color he never saw up until that moment, across two full pages. He drew himself chasing down the Nazi on foot, legs pumping, heart pounding, and his frantic mental thought process of ‘why isn’t this hurting me?’

He drew his discussion with Phillips and the information that he would be the best damn spy the SSR ever trained. He drew his identity getting erased. It was a tricky scene to draw, trying to convey the emotions of just… not being real. To do that, he drew himself looking up from all the blacked out text on the pages with a thick black line over the space where his eyes were. He made the point of doing that whenever it was mentioned or he remembered it really hitting him.

He drew his training, the brutal slaps and punches Peggy gave him as she barked orders in furious German. He drew Stark giving him the shield with his offhand explanations. He drew the people who helped him learn how to use his new body and strength, including the guys in the bowels of the ship who laughed at him. 

He drew Peggy in all of her commanding might, sharp and quick and furious and strong. He drew more training and back breaking work. He drew England and the SSR base there. He drew going to the 107th, or what was left of it. He drew his daring and ill-advised mission to save Bucky and the other men.

He drew the dive from the aircraft, explosions all around him as he dropped through the darkness, quietly singing ‘Blood on the Risers’. He drew himself breaking in using the dead guard's uniform, he drew the conditions of the prisoners. He drew the cells with Dum Dum Dugan, Gabe Jones, Monty Falsworth, Jim Morita, and Jacques Dernier; his friends. He drew the halls he rushed down trying to find Bucky and Zola speeding away with barely a glance behind his shoulder. 

He drew Bucky strapped to the table, all the medical equipment spread above him menacingly glinting with shiny needles and blades. He drew himself tearing off the buckles and getting Bucky to focus on him. He drew their escape and Red Skull in his flesh mask. He drew them walking toward each other in a face off across the two pages. He drew the quick fight and Red Skull tearing his fake face off in his grand speech.

Steve drew Skull as he remembered him, ugly and arrogant. He drew Zola cowering behind Skull like a scrawny little lab rat.

He drew Bucky and him screaming at each other from across the burning chasm and Steve’s leap of faith through flames.

He drew getting out of that building and over to the survivors. He drew their march to camp, the long nights of lookout and carrying the injured as best he could. He drew the celebration that followed them getting back and Steve claiming his team along with Bucky.

He drew the bitter race-based fight that followed and Steve’s threats. Phillips didn't give two shits, but a lot of other people did. Especially about Morita. 

Steve drew everything that happened after that, the first base they took out as a team, the poor conditions they had to brave sometimes, the death and gore of the POW’s that didn’t make it long enough to get rescued, the bodies of the Hydra personnel. He drew the horror of war and his longing to be able to do more. Steve drew his first pipe and the reasons he had behind it. He drew the amazing political cartoons and Peggy telling him all about the reaction to his successes.

This one was close to the end of the war, when he had to run across Nazi-occupied France to deliver crucial intel on Hydra to another base that was cut off from communications.

He’d run the whole way, not stopping for days. He could feel the exhaustion in his limbs, the heavyweight of his stumbling feet, the nausea in his stomach and the blurry vision.

Drawing the scene of him throwing up his ration wasn’t pleasant. He could practically feel himself putting a hand on a tree to steady himself as he coughs and groans. The image on the page doesn’t even show what was left of his breakfast of that day, just him walking it off after unpleasantly leaving his vomit behind the bushes.

Then he kept running. He was so tired that he pretty much collapsed face first when he delivered the intel.

He snaps out of it when Bucky puts a plate of grilled cheese next to him and kisses the top of Steve’s head. “Hey, buttercup. How’s work?” God, it feels like yesterday that all they could afford was potatoes and cabbage, trying to make it last as long as possible. Now he has gooey cheese and crisp fresh bread and salty potato chips and fresh sweet fruit.

“How would I know, I’m doodlin’ for the fuck of it,” Steve replies on instincts.

And he starts to feel more normal. Not all the way there, but close. The mission is too fresh and he feels like he’s still at war.


	9. Nelipot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nelipot: one who walks barefoot

Steve is reading in the living room when he hears voices out back. Bucky is in the kitchen trying to figure out how to fix their toaster, which was broken in a tragic accident because Steve accidentally startled Bucky into dropping the poor thing when he was holding it. It wasn’t Steve’s fault that he’d been trained to be utterly silent. It just kind of happened.

He figures someone is in the backyard and hops over the couch silently, striding down the hall and opening the door. Two barefoot children blink at him in fright, both wearing ballcaps, one on the other’s shoulders and over by the tree.

“Lemme down, we gotta run!” the smaller one says frantically.

Steve frowns and looks around. Ah, they’ve got some sort of frisbee stuck in the tree. They probably threw it too high and it went over the fence.

“Hold on,” he says. “I vill get it down for you.”

The two boys, now both on the ground and in the midst of backing towards the fence, pause. “What?”

“I vill get it down. I am not going to chase you out and keep it for myself,” Steve said dryly and walked over. “Now, what are your names?”

“I’m, uh, Rick Marlow and this is my brother Benjamin.”

“I go by  _ Ben _ .”

“Nice to meet you. My name is Stefan Schneider.”

“Yeah, we know, mom hates you and talks about you all the time,” Rick reports.

“Zat I am aware of,” Steve sighed tiredly and then looked up at the tree, jumping for the disk. He used a bit of his super strength to get up that high, but the kids didn’t seem to notice. He snags the frisbee and dropped down, brushing some leaves off it before passing it to Ben.

“Why?”

“Vhy vat?”

“Does mom talk about you and Mrs. Marx all the time?”

Steve was not prepared to have this conversation, but he promised himself and swore to Kathy that if they asked, he would answer. He took a breath and considered. “Vell, you see, your mother doesn’t like people like us.”

“The people with the rainbow flags? Mrs. Marx has one on her car bumper.”

“Ja, sort of. You see, the flag says that we are a part of a particular community, a community of people who aren’t straight. Do you know zat term?”

“It sounds familiar but I dunno,” Rick says.

“Well, being straight means that you fall in love with the opposite sex. Like a man loves a woman and vice versa. Now, Andy and I are not so… ‘traditional,’ I’ll say. Andy has enough love for two men, both of whom love her and each other. As for me, I fell in love with a man. Because we do not love like your mother, because I do not love a woman and Andy is not just with her husband, she thinks we are… wrong, unnatural. You see?”

“That doesn’t sound fair,” Ben said. 

“Many believe it is not,” Steve agreed. “The community I am a part of is diverse in many ways. It is a community for those who are queer, which is a simplified term of everyone who isn’t straight and cisgendered.”

“Cis… what?”

“Vell, basically it means people who do not conform to what sex they were born as, or who go out the boundaries of what most people think a man or woman should be. Men who like dresses. People who don’t identify as either a man or woman. Women who were born as men, and many more.”

“Sounds complicated,” Ben groaned. 

“I’m afraid it doesn’t get simpler from there,” Steve chuckles. “Anyway, zat’s basically what makes up the queer community, people who love differently and who don’t conform to gender boundaries.” He doesn’t want to over confused them by dropping the term intersex yet and he really isn’t comfortable discussing genitalia or the like with the kids of someone who hates him. That is just a bad idea waiting to happen. Maybe when they’re older and want to know more.

“Huh. Mom makes it sound really bad, about sinning and stuff.”

“I like to think that religion is open to interpretation. See, Christianity teaches you to love everyone, no matter what, correct?”

Then nod, shrugging a bit.

“So why does your mother dislike Andy and I so much if she’s supposed to accept us despite what we do? And, besides that, what about my love makes me a sinner? Is it wrong to want that everybody be allowed to marry the person, or people, they love?”

They look like they were smacked in the heads with raw fish. “Oh, huh,” Ben says. The boys considered. “So boys can like boys and girls can like many boys?”

“And girls can like girls, and boys can like many girls, and some might not like anyone! It isn’t an exact science, you see. There are many types of people who identify queer and how they do it is up to them. The important thing is to know that your options are open. You might like girls, you might like boys, you might like both, or you might not like anyone! That’s for you to find out eventually.”

They nod as one in agreement.

“Very good. Now, if you have any questions or someone says something you want to know more about, I’ll be happy to explain it to you, but for now, you two should run along and go play over at your house. I imagine your mother would throw a fit to see me talking to you.”

“Right,” Rick said and then gave Ben a boost over the fence. Steve helped him up the last little bit and he disappeared over the edge.

“Thank you, Mister Schneider!”

Steve waved goodbye and went back to the house, where Bucky was cursing in the kitchen and saying they’d have to get a new toaster if it didn’t cooperate. He was adorable when he was frustrated.


	10. Selcouth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Selcouth: Unfamiliar, rare, strange, and yet marvelous

On the way home from a particularly draining mission, Steve notices the truck next to him opening its window. At such speeds, on a highway, he expects a cigarette butt or just an arm sticking out to enjoy the breeze. What he gets is a flash of something the color of skin being tossed out as it flailed.

Without a second thought, Steve leans to the side, scooping it out of the air and bringing it to his chest for safety. His heart was pounding because he kind of thought it was a baby, but when he looks down, he finds a panicked hairless cat with eyes closed against the wind. It was trembling like a leaf and looked filthy. The next thing Steve noticed was the tattoos all over its body. He was riding a motorcycle down a highway, so he didn’t really get a good look at the exact images, but he could tell they were extensive and skilled.

He looked back at the truck and the man at the wheel, looking a bit caught. Steve’s helmet automatically records what's happening around him. A dash cam. He’s got plates, a clear view of the assholes face, and footage of the incident. He only has to submit it to the police.

Steve flipped up his visor quickly and glared with all the rage he had in his body. “Have fun with your animal abuse charge, asshole!” Steve shouts over the wind. “And this cat is mine now you abusive son of a bitch!”

The man looks ready to argue or shout at Steve, but Steve revs his engine and speeds away, trying to keep the cat as covered as possible by his arm. He pulls over at one point to shove the cat in his jacket and feel its trembling body against his warm one. With the cat all settled, Steve starts forward again. He keeps an arm over the cat to make sure it doesn’t just slip and fall out and when Steve gets home and puts the shaking animal on the countertop, Bucky looks at it in horror, eyes wide.

“What the fuck is that?!” He sputters.

“It’s a cat,” Steve sighs, running warm water in the sink. “Get the dog shampoo. It’ll have to work for now.”

“No! That is a rat or a fucked up looking pig, tell me what it is!”

“I’m tellin’ you, it’s a cat!”

“It’s a naked mole rat! It looks like a goblin!” Bucky says when he returns, putting the green bottle on the countertop and pointing at the cat.

“Leave the poor thing alone!” Steve protests. “It got thrown out a car window!”

The cat blinks at both of them with wide eyes and Steve carefully puts it in the warm water, starting to rinse the little guy off. He then slowly suds up the cat in a calm manner, murmuring encouraging things to keep it steady. It looks much cleaner by the time Steve finally rinsed all the suds off, less oily and gritty.

The cat makes a noise that wasn’t actually a meow and Steve dried it off with a fluffy towel, leaving it wrapped up as he walked back to the couch and sat against Bucky, his burrito cat in his arms.

“Those ears are bigger’n yours,” Bucky mumbles into Steve's hair, wrapping an arm around Steve’s shoulders. Charlie clambers up and noses at the towel wrap in interest, jumping back in surprise when he figured out it was a cat. The cat struggled to reach out a pair of paws and kind of grabbed Charlie's face. The cat sniffed in interest and let out a huffed purr.

“Aw, your ugly cat likes Charlie,” Bucky cooed.

“Stop bein’ a jerk,” Steve huffed.

“So what happened anyway?” Bucky asks at last.

Steve explains how a man dropped the little guy out the window, fully intending to rid himself of the cat, and how Steve grabbed it before it could touch the ground. He let the cat out of the wrap in order to get his computer and sent the footage to a nearby police station. The cat didn’t move off Steve’s lap and the little guy was still shivering. Steve grabbed a small blanket off the back of the couch and draped it over the little guy’s shoulders.

“What’re you gonna name ‘em?” Bucky asked, twirling Steve’s hair with his fingers casually.

Steve looked at the cat and it blinked wide eyes at him. “Alexi.”

“After the Russian spy?” Bucky asked, tilting his head.

The spy in question was an ally of Steve’s. They met in a HYDRA base all those years back and both agreed that the enemy of an enemy was an ally. They argued over the possession of files and information and settled on some compromises before they evacuated and blew the building sky high. A nice guy, just as good at his job as Steve was. Didn’t hang around long, but he made a good impression. He was also covered in tattoos, but they were all under his sleeves or uniform.

“Yeah,” Steve answers simply.

The next day Steve takes the cat to the vet, who says the cat is in decent shape but appears to have a sensitive digestive system and needed special food and care. When Steve told her how he obtained the cat, because she was eyeing him and the tattoos on the cat, her expression cleared up. “He probably knew about these problems and thought it would be easier to get rid of him rather than pay for the treatments,” she said.

Alexi fits in like a charm. He seems to like Steve better, in general, and curls up on his lap when he sits down, every time, without fail. He likes stealing pencils and that is endlessly frustrating for Steve because they’ll all go missing and then they’ll find them under Charlie's dog bed or somewhere else insane.

 

* * *

 

_ @sniperpiper _

Friendly reminder that animal abuse isn’t okay. Do it in front of me and your pet is mine, no exceptions. Now I've got an ugly cat.

 

@J.Barnes1917

It's really, really ugly.

 

* * *

 


	11. Kummerspeck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kummerspeck: excessive weight gained through stress eating

Steve gets sent out on a mission in India to put a stop to an illegal arms trade deal and comes back feeling wrong again. It fades again, with time, but it’s awfully concerning while it lasts.

Bucky’s bar finally gets completed and registered and Bucky meets with potential employees. With Tony’s guidance, he interviews candidates and goes over paperwork and resumes.

The bar was in fact named Au Futur and was a very nice place, with a dark wooden bar and a little over a dozen circular tables. Bucky threw in modern twists to make it look futuristic. The finished product looked pretty similar to the inside of Tony’s tower, just with fewer whites. There were booths in the back corner and the menu of beers, carefully drawn by Steve in chalk, contained dozens of drinks. There was, of course, also food like nachos, cheese fries, and pretzels available. Bucky also spoke with the restaurant owners in the area and they agreed to have food delivered there if it was ordered. Bucky took a few dozen menus from those places so people could eat pizza, wings, burgers, and a few others food types if they ordered it there.

With everything set up, Bucky opened for business and instantly did well. People loved drinking, the bar had a good atmosphere, dogs and other service animals were allowed, and the employees were competent and good at what they did. Bucky also paid a decent living wage rather than minimum wage. He treated his employees with respect and in turn received loyalty. Bucky loved his job. Steve could see it clearly. His happy pleased smile when customers complimented the food, or the beer, or the atmosphere, promising to recommend it to friends.

Every now and then Steve came to mix drinks or bartend and Bucky beamed at him, sliding by every now and then to kiss the top of Steve’s head.

Once he was working he handed a couple two of the same beers. While the woman wasn’t looking, the man slipped something into her drink. Steve, having noticed this, switch their drinks while neither was paying attention.

He leaned against the bar, just a few feet away, and watched the guy roofie himself. When the woman seemed concerned over his seemingly drunk behavior and drugged expression, Steve explained what he did passively. 

Furious, she joined him in his observation. Steve called him an ambulance and had him carried out unceremoniously. He informed the bar, at large, that if he saw anybody try any funny business with someone else's drinks, that would happen to them.

The female population of the bar increased by 10 percent and he got a reputation of the watchdog of the bar. Their ratings improved. Bucky was very pleased and hugged Steve while he was working more often as if to proudly proclaim the tiny blond as his angry Valkyrie.

Bucky bought him a sign that said ‘ _ Beware of the Bartender. _ ’ Steve was mildly unimpressed. Bucky laughed at him.

Steve worked on his graphic nonfiction book more. 

He drew the team, all working together, taking down bases. He drew the hilarious mishaps, like Steve getting startled by a Hydra agent while he was shaving near their little camp. He winded up having to stab the guy in the neck with his perfectly good razor and storming back to camp for another one to finish what he started. He drew hair-raising near misses, like the time he pulled Jacques out of the way from being vaporized when a trigger happy soldier started firing randomly into the forest.

Jacques looked shellshocked for a good few hours after that and had trouble getting to sleep that night.

He drew Bucky’s proposal, soft and sweet in the dim light of their tent.

Steve drew the train mission. He drew icy snow and the bullet of a train zipping along the mountainside.  The ambush meant to split them up and take them out. He drew the explosion as a pair of two-page outside shots. One normal, just the side of the train, the next the bright concussive explosion and the damage it left. He drew Bucky being blasted out the side and the (too close too close) danger of him falling to his death. He drew Gabe capturing Zola and Bucky needing to face the other direction because Zola’s very presence set him on edge and made his eyes look glossy.

He drew Phillips interrogation from the transcription he read when Phillip reported his new found information to them. He made sure to mention, a little asterisk attached to the bottom of the page, that he’s only fairly certain that this is how the scene looked.

He drew his team's reaction to the news that Red Skull was going to blow up the East Coast and they had less than 24 hours to stop it. It was one of the big ones, taking up another pair of two pages. One where they all stared in horror and another where the only change was Steve lighting his pipe. He draws himself announcing his stupid ‘ _ hit ‘em hard and fuck ‘em up _ ’ plan.

He draws his solo assault on the base, his capture, and him being taken to Skull.

He drew himself being slugged hard across the face, and his teeth stained with blood as he grinned up at Skull. “I can do this all day,” Steve mumbles as he carefully outlines his penciled words in ink.

Skull scowled down at him and draws his gun on the page, the barrel pointing between Steve’s eyes.

He starts badly when Bucky drops a paperweight on the other side of the room because he was so immersed in his art that it sounded like a shot being fired. Except… it didn’t. It was just loud and sudden. Alexi, startled by him being startled, jumps off his lap and runs off. 

Bucky noticed though, as he went to pick up the weight, cursing. He blinked at Steve frowning. “You okay, buttercup?”

Steve kind of didn’t know how to feel. “I guess I gotta take a break,” he admitted. “I’ll go start somethin’ for dinner.”

He saw Bucky stand and go over to his drawing table as he left, but he didn’t do anything about it.

 

* * *

 

After dinner found them making out on their pull out bed. By the time that Steve’s in his briefs and Bucky’s in his boxers, Steve has noticed something. He draws back, surprised. 

“Are you… Bigger?”

“What?” Bucky asked, looking self-conscious and caught out. His hands basically wrap around Steve’s waist right now, thumbs rubbing at his pointy hip bones.

“You’re… beefy! Look at this!” Steve feels along Bucky’s chest and down to his stomach. He used to be more wiry, less well-fed. He isn’t fat or chubby, they both work out and the serum has a metabolism that’s too fast for that, but he’s definitely more filled in. His hands feel a tad bigger and the Bucky just looks meatier.

Bucky crosses his arms over his chest and flushes. “No, I’m not!”

“Bucky, you used to be able to cut diamonds on the V of your hips, now they’re all smooth!” He runs his hands down them to prove himself right. He’s got the divot, but it isn’t so sharp now. He feels like his hands are smaller on Bucky too.

“Stop it!” Bucky squeaks out.

Steve starts to laugh, running his hands down his smooth stomach. His abs were there, strong as steel, but it had a nice padding now, so it didn’t look like he was carved marble. “Why didn’t I notice this sooner! Buck!”

“Steve!”

“Like a body pillow!” Steve grabs Bucky and flips them over so he’s laying on top of Bucky and squeezing him tight. Bucky puts his hands over his face out of embarrassment, the black plastic fingers of the prosthetic hiding less than Bucky’s real hand.

“Steve, please!” Bucky finally peels Steve off of him and puts his real hand on Steve’s chest to keep him off. Steve is so small in comparison that when Bucky’s hand is open palm against his chest the end of his thumb and forefinger can almost reach his armpits. It’s still got a little more than an inch on either side, but it’s close.

Bucky withdraws his hand in bewilderment and looks at it, incredulous. Steve laughs and doubled over again.

“I’m meaty! What the fuck!”

“We’re getting regular meals, not rations for unenhanced people. And you ain’t running ‘round shootin’ Nazis all the time! Oh, god, and you eat when you get stressed. Jesus, Buck, you look like you could crush me!”

Bucky looked like he was having an existential crisis.

“That’s why your shirts haven’t been fitting as well. You can’t blame the dryer for  _ this _ !” Steve grabbed Bucky’s pecks and Bucky swatted his hands away.

“Stevie!” Bucky groaned, flushed red with embarrassment. “C’mon, this ain’t funny! I didn’t even notice and now I’m all… thick and stuff!”

Steve drummed on Bucky’s pecks and Bucky shoved him off and rolled over, laying facedown on the bed and that was when Steve noticed Bucky’s ass. “Oh my god,” he said and grabbed it with both hands. Bucky’s ass had gotten bigger too! This prompted Bucky squawking and rolling off the bed.

“Now I don’t even wanna fuck you,” Bucky grumbled on the floor, semi-curled in a fetal position. “Dammit, Steve. I had an erection.”

Steve crawled over to look over the edge of the bed. “I mean- I’ve still got one.”

Bucky looked up at him. “Really?”

“Course. I definitely want you to do me, so…” He picked at the edge of the bed and grinned slyly at Bucky.

Bucky fumbled. “Even with…” He gestured to all of him and the arm.

“Yeah. You’re my Bucky. I love you however you are. Two arms or not. Starving in the Depression Era chic or not. Plus, I bet it makes getting held down pretty swell. Just imagine…” Steve said, hinting at the prospect. “Little ol’ me, trapped under you alla you…”

Bucky rolled over so he was on his back, fingers tapping away on his stomach as he considered. Steve notices that Bucky’s claim of no longer having an erection was false and a lovely flush accentuated Bucky’s face and chest. “Okay.”

“Then c’mon up here.”


	12. Aleatory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aleatory: relying on chance or an uncontrolled element in the details of life or in the creation of art

Steve took another mission. It was busting a major business with dirty dealing such as human trafficking, drug running, and arms trade as well as a few other things. 

He came home and Bucky was going about his day as usual, unaffected. Well, Steve knew he wasn't unaffected, but Bucky seemed right at home whereas Steve felt terribly misplaced.

Steve shook it off after a few days, but he still didn’t understand the misplacement. He got into the swing of things and watched movies with Bucky on the couch, cuddling close as Steve ignored the cut on his side he got during the mission. It would be healed by tomorrow.

He was so close to finishing his book.

He drew himself sneering  _ “I've had closer brushes with death than this, you don't scare me,” _ up at Skull and the rapid battle that followed. He drew Phillips racing them down the track after the Valkyrie.

He drew himself and Bucky climbing up into the ship and disabling the first Hydra agents they saw, changing quickly to blend in. Steve drew himself fighting the Skull tooth and bloody nail. He drew Bucky sliding in last minute and firing shots at Skull. 

He drew the side view of Bucky getting his arm blasted off over two pages, the bright blue bolt vaporizing it and knocking Bucky off his feet, sprawling over the floor as Steve called out in shock and fear on the page.

He took another entire page for the space vortex with the stars and galaxies. It was a particularly tricky one to do, but Steve couldn’t forget the sight if he tried. He drew himself getting Bucky over to the seat and fumbling for the radio.

Most of the next few pages were of the outside of the ship as he spoke with Peggy over the radio, the peaceful airspace spread out before them. When the radio cut out, he went back to just him and Bucky, careening towards the ice and barely managing their last minute, well, not confessions, exactly, but it was the same idea. 

He drew the crash and the moment of weightlessness where he was thrown through the air. He drew his head slamming into the glass and then two pairs of pages of just scribbled blackness. Then he consulted the excavation folder he got from SHIELD and redrew the photos and footage from the excavation crew. He read the transcriptions and listened to the audio carefully, trying to make it as accurate as possible.

The picture of himself and Bucky frozen made him stare for a while.

That frozen chunk of ice was… him. All those icy edges with sharp angular edges contained him, frozen, suspended, dead and not.

He had more pages of black before he had himself opening his eyes to the SHIELD hospital room, cuffs on his skinny wrists and strapped to the bed, suspected of being a fucking Nazi. When she basically admitted to not knowing who he was, he scribbled the black line over his eyes.

He drew his messy confusion over trying to figure out where he was after breaking out. He made sure not to include anything that could endanger SHIELD, like the map of HQ, which Steve scribbled out like his eyes. He drew his skirmish with Nick Fury and the security crew and his thirteen-hour standoff, including him beating the snot out of Clint and getting shot.

He drew himself talking to Fury before passing out.

He drew himself getting out of his hospital bed on shaky legs and demanding to be put into Bucky’s room. He drew his and Fury’s conversation, followed by Steve reading the book in his bed. He drew Bucky waking up and their following conversation.

He drew them falling asleep and suddenly he was done. He had accomplished all of what he wanted to do, shown the history that was secure in files and blacked out with a sharpie, and now he was done.

It was a little off putting. Nonetheless, he designed a cover, simple black with a white star in the center. Inside the star was the word  _ Classified _ with a line through it, just enough so you could still read the word. He typed up a quick forward, explaining how he felt it was necessary to share the missing history he had knowledge of. He used his code name as a pseudonym and Tony directed him towards a publisher who was all too enthusiastic to publish the book.

And, expectedly, the world went nuts.

Steve didn’t really know what to do with that. He’d turn on the news and he’d find a news station or a history channel talking about it. He was actually kind of concerned about the coverage it was getting. It hit the most sold graphic novel list in days and discussions of its contents become a widely criticized topic. Steve had, of course, blacked out or attempted to hide SSR locations and his name, so people didn’t know the locations he was at during any point in the novel except for parts of Europe. People discussed the brief glimpse they go of his childhood, his eagerness to fight, his illegal activities, and, of course, his service.

He had included several moments that heavily alluded him to torturing Hydra soldiers but didn’t include what he actually did. People were shocked.

They scrambled over the thick book, reading his missions and about his team, and about what he did and how he did it. They analyzed his missions, his activities, his team. They read about the Azzano mission that he went AWOL to accomplish.

There were serious discussions of Bucky losing his arm in the manner he did and criticism towards SHIELD for shooting Steve and sedating Bucky.

* * *

 

_ @J.Barnes1917 _

To those who apologized for my vaporized arm: it’s not your fault unless you’re a Nazi and I’m fine! #Classified

 

* * *

 

History buffs went fucking insane, to say the least. History books updated and so did the Captain’s Wikipedia page. All in all, Steve’s book was pretty big, but apparently, in some schools, kids read passages to learn about his missions, which was a strange thought.

Tony called laughing at some point.  _ “Oh my god, I’m to where you’re being strapped into the machine, Christ, did you really think my dad was going to kill you?”  _ He was, evidently, reading the book with Pepper.

“ _ Yes _ ,” Steve hissed. “I really thought your father was going to kill me, Jesus. His flyin’ car, while impressive, crashed into the stage and he tried to salvage the situation with a joke. I thought he’d do the same with me!”

Tony continued laughing. “ ‘ _ I’m gonna to die,’  _ “ he quotes.  _ “It’s so dead pan!” _

_ “Tony stop laughing, he really thought he was going to die,”  _ Pepper childs.  _ “Like, think of when, well, you went into the wormhole.” _

Tony abruptly stops laughing.  _ “Oh,” _ he said softly. Steve frowns, concerned.

_ “Sorry, Tony,”  _ Pepper said immediately, sounding guilty.  _ “I shouldn't have brought that up.” _

_ “It’s- it’s fine,” _ Tony manages.  _ “Sorry Cap.” _

“It’s fine,” Steve says. “It was a while ago. Are you okay?”

_ “I’m- I’m- I think I need a minute,” _ Tony says hastily and the phone makes some scuffling noises.

_ “Tony left the room. Anyway, we love the book,”  _ Pepper said.  _ “It’s pretty great, I love your art style.” _

“Thanks,” Steve said.

_ “I’ll call later,” _ she says.  _ “Or I’ll use Tony’s phone to text you. Bye!” _

“Bye.”

A few minutes later he receives an  _ ‘oh my god is your spine splitting?’  _ then a few minutes after  _ ‘i’m so sorry about Erskine.’ _

_ ‘Erskine deserved better,’  _ he replied simply.  _ ‘He was a good man.’ _

For some reason, him pulling Jaques out of the way of the ray became a meme. Each thing was labeled, usually Steve was like (my bro) Jacques was (me) and the ray was (that gay shit) or something similar. Another meme was Bucky’s shield launch. One of the scenes was simply treetops and then Bucky’s head poking out of them. It was usually something like (me when foods ready) or (when i hear discourse in the fandom).

And let’s not forget, ‘It’s probably a weather balloon’ when something was clearly not a weather balloon.

 

* * *

 

_@J.Barnes1917_

Reminder. Only three people can call me Bucky; the Captain, Tony Stark, and the Black Widow. Everybody else better call me James.

 

_ @J.Barnes1917 _

Why? Because Widow scares me, Stark refers to everyone via nickname, and Cap is my fiance, that’s why.

 

 


	13. 아쉬움

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Yes, I know, it's a Korean word, but it fits so shush.)
> 
> 아쉬움: the mingled feeling of disappointment, frustration, and regret that results from an unsatisfactory situation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for a character collapsing, in public, in relation to a mental illness/ trigger words off the screen and getting pissed/embarrassed at himself.

Steve’s phone rang. ‘- _ Masculine women, feminine men, which is the roos- _ ” he picked it up, wondering why Bucky was calling so soon. He just stopped to get some cereal from Target why would he-

_ “Steve?” _ Bucky asked in a small voice.  _ “Can you come pick me up?” _

“Bucky, what’s wrong?” Steve asked, straightening from where he was slouched on the couch, his book fell from his hand, hearing Bucky's uneven voice.

_ “I- I collapsed. There were some girls talking nearby and they said- said some of the words and I-” _

“Oh my god, Bucky I’m on my way. It’ll be there in just a minute. Charlie is there, right?” Steve asked, getting up and abandoning everything he was doing.

_ “Mm hmm.” _

“Keep petting him and just wait there. Do you want me to stay on the phone with you?”

_ “C- can you?” _

“Of course, I just need to put it on Bluetooth because I’m taking my motorcycle.” Steve put in the little device and switched it on in a second. “Here, better?”

_ “Ye-yeah. I’m sorry.” _

“Don’t be sorry,” Steve begged, grabbing his helmet and flying out the door. He barely remembered to lock it before hopping on his bike and zooming down the driveway. “I’m on the road already.”

_ “I hate this. I came too and there were people hovering over me and someone was trying to call an ambulance- It was so embarrassing and I’m still sitting on the floor in the cereal aisle ‘cuz my legs won’t work right. And people are staring.” _

“Fuck them, they don’t know what happened and they don’t deserve to know. All that matters if that you’re alright.”

_ “I fucking collapsed at a Target, Steve! Mumbling like I’m some kinda lunatic!” _

“Yeah, and I have nightmares that are so bad I can’t sleep after. I can’t go out unless I have a gun and two knives on me. The war fucked us both up and we know that, all we can do now is not let it ruin everything else for us, right? We’re stronger than letting it make it so we can’t set a foot outside our doors.”

_ “...Yeah.” _

“You’ve got your bar, and you know the kids that work for you look up to you. They look up to you even with everything. They embrace your arm and they like Charlie and know why you have him. You’ve got me, and we went to hell and back together, and we’ve got friends. Strangers at a Target can stare all they like, they don’t know what you’ve been through. They’ll never know, they’ll just think you're some guy with a dog that’s having a bad day.”

_ “Okay. You’re right. They’re just people. I’ll probably never see them again.” _

“Exactly. Okay, I’m almost there, alright? Just a few more minutes.”

_ “What about the cereal?” _

“Fuck the cereal, I’ll make pancakes.”

 

* * *

 

Later that night, when they’re set up in the tent in their room, Bucky rolls onto his back. Before Steve can remind him that that doesn’t do good things for his sleep, Bucky clears his throat.

“I think… I think what get’s me the most is that he left me behind.”

Steve props himself up. “What?”

“Z-... him.” 

_ Zola. _

“What about him?” Steve asked softly, holding Bucky’s hand.

“I hated him. He was a fucking sick bastard. He- you know what he did. He enjoyed it. But, I thought- I thought he liked me? In some sort of sick way? Like, as his experiment. I thought he liked the project, he was… dedicated. And then when you broke in, he came back for his papers. He didn’t even look at me, didn’t care if I got out or not. He just abandoned me. Left me alone and mumbling in that lab. I don’t know why that gets me so much. I hated him, would have broken his neck if I had gotten free, but I thought he…” Bucky trailed off, sighing.

Steve wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “You, well, had an expectation of him,” he said at last. “And he didn’t fit with what you got from him. And then he left you because he didn’t care when you thought he did.”

Bucky doesn’t say anything or even move.

“He was a piece of shit. That’s what they do,” Steve said at last. “To him, you were a toy, in a respect, and he could always get more toys. You mean more than that to me, remember that, okay? You’re my world.”

“I love you so much,” Bucky mumbles, tugging him close. He does eventually flip on his side, but Steve knows he doesn’t sleep as well as he usually does that night.


	14. Yoko meshi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yoko meshi: the peculiar stress of speaking a foreign language

A few weeks later, Steve is waiting for Bucky to come home. Bucky comes home from work around eight, leaving his ‘junior manager in training’ to man the place from then to about midnight.

This being, they eat dinner later and Steve mostly hangs around reading on his tablet until Bucky gets home. Alexi was purring on his lap, dozing a bit. He was wearing a cat sweater Steve bought on Amazon and looked quite adorable.

When Bucky got back, however, he closes the door and put his forehead on it. Like he was trying to keep something on the other side from opening it. His arms were crossed over his chest and he wasn’t turning around.

“Bucky? What’s wrong?”

“...You hafta promise not t’laugh.”

Steve raises an eyebrow as Charlie wanders over to say hi to Steve. “Sure. What’s wrong, Buck?”

“I joined a book club. I host on Sunday afternoons.”

Steve stared at the back of Bucky’s head for a minute. “How the fuck did you manage that?” He sputtered out.

“There were these dames at the bar who were planning out a schedule and talkin’ about the books they’d read and I was servin’ ‘em and I got interested and they passed me a flyer and I really wanted to join in and now I’m in a book club. An’ I feel like some sorta dumb stereotype ‘cuz I’m the only guy, and a gay one at that, in a book club that’s all girls.”

Steve started laughing, but the kind of laugh where you're looking at someone and trying not to laugh because you don’t want them to notice. Bucky was still pressed against the door and his hand was now up and covering his face which was probably red by how his ears looked right now.

“The books sounded really fun to read,” Bucky says miserably. “The Martian, Good Omens, The Great Gatsby, The Book Thief an’ some others and it sounded so fun an’ now I feel stupid and I can  _ hear you laughing- _ ”

Steve starts laughing out loud now. He’s glad Bucky’s making friends and doing things, but the way he ran into that and sounds so embarrassed and excited about the prospect is just too much. Bucky was so adorable.

Without warning, Bucky turned around, beat red and stormed over, flopping over the couch and, of course, Steve. Bucky’s weight forced the air and laughter from Steve lungs. Alexi yowled and scrambled away. The pokey metal and plastic from the prosthetic dug into his stomach and there was the feeling of a book against his hip. Steve struggled to push Bucky off.

“You jerk! You- get off!” Steve protested, meeping when Bucky wrapped him up in his arms and hugged him closer in retaliation.

Bucky basically engulfed Steve like this and he was pressed into the couch as Bucky grumbled against his shoulder. Steve managed to grab the book he felt and wiggle his arm out from under Bucky, who protested but didn’t let go. Steve managed to look at the cover. The Martian. It wasn’t hardcover and looked a little worn. It had a sticker that labeled it as costing 2.99 and was clearly from a thrift store.

“Awww,” Steve said, exaggerating the noise. 

“Stop bein’ mean to me,” Bucky whined.

Inside the book was a paper, folded in half. Steve managed to wiggle it out and unfold it. There was print on it, big bold text.  _ ‘Book Club! Meetings on Sunday afternoons, location- Au Futur/???’ _  There was a list of books and it was decently decorated with cute designs.

There was also an email and phone number, particularly, of the organizer of the club.

It did look interesting. Steve can see how Bucky could be swayed.

“Cute,” Steve allowed. “So we’re gonna have a buncha dames over on Sundays?”

“Yeah,” Bucky mumbled into Steve’s chest. “They wanted somewhere to talk about the books, but they kinda decided my bar was a bit loud for that and one of ‘em doesn’t drink. She just had some nachos and a soda.”

Steve considered the book Bucky bought for his club and the flyer he also held and smiled, leaning down to kiss. It was really sweet. Bucky seemed excited and anxious about this. “Well, I hope you have fun with your Book Club gals.”

Bucky looked up and gives a hesitant smile. “Yeah? You don’t mind?”

“Course not,” Steve replied. “I mean, you got suckered into hosting the thing, you goob, but a least you’ll have fun, right?”

“I didn’t get suckered into it,” Bucky protested.

“Every Sunday, Bucky. In our living room.”

“I mean, outside too, I guess,” Bucky mumbled. “If it’s nice.”

Steve laughs and hugs Bucky because he’s being so adorable and he’s just the  _ best. _

Steve cooks meatloaf that night while Bucky reads. Bucky suddenly curses. “Fuck’s sake, the guy’s name is Chris Beck!”

Steve starts cackling. “Did Natasha get you your identity?” He manages and at Bucky’s frustrated nod, laughs harder.

 

* * *

 

On Sunday, Steve decided to go out and get in a little extra training at the Triskelion. He worked with some guns, practiced with his shield, beat up some punching bags, and even got some instruction in how to pilot a commercial airliner.  Feeling sweaty and knowledgeable, he drove home, picking up some plums and apples for the pie Bucky wanted to make later. There were now about four cars around their house. Steve parked his truck on the street and climbed out, grabbing the bag of produce.

Kathy is sitting on her porch. “I saw a bunch of women go in with your… fiancee,” she comments. “Maybe he was just lying to himself with you?” She says consideringly.

“If ve’re having an orgy, zat’s our business, fuck off Kazy.” 

She looks highly offended. Good. How dare she say that Bucky was  _ cheating _ on him and  _ lying _ about his sexuality.  What the fuck?

“It’s a book club, Kazy, calm down and leave us alone.”

What the fuck kind of person-

As he climbed up the stairs to the door, he heard laughter and chattering from inside. Steve shouldered the door open. (Honey, I’m home!) he announced and closed the door behind him. Everybody looked at him, which was suddenly concerning. Bucky’s book club consisted of seven women. Three black women, a Muslim woman wearing a pretty red hijab, a Latino woman, and two white women. 

Bucky, on the couch and closest to the door, was wide-eyed and clutching his book tight to his chest. He looked like Steve just caught him with a hand in his pants. Because Steve crashed his little… tea party. There’s a half-empty plate of sugar cookies and several empty cups with the remnants of ice in them. Oh my god, Bucky made them tea and cookies. That’s fucking adorable.

(Did you make cookies and tea for your club? Oh my god, that’s- Chris.) Steve tries to muffle his laugh as he walks past and into the kitchen. 

(Don’t laugh at me! They love my cookies, unlike your ungrateful ass!)

(I love your cookies!) Steve protests and kissed Bucky on the cheek as he passes and walks into the kitchen. He unloads the apples and plums into the fridge so they’ll be cold, still chuckling to himself. Bucky looked so frazzled and caught, he can’t get it out of his mind. He’ll have to sketch it later.

He hears the women start to talk among themselves again.

He leaves one plum out and rinses it quickly, drying it on a kitchen towel before wandering back into the living room. He kisses the top of Bucky’s head and hands him the plum, winding his other arm around his neck and down his chest a bit in a backward hug.

(How’s the club?)

(Good) Bucky replied, smiling. (I heard you shout at Kathy, what’d she say?)

(Implied that you were cheating on me and lying about you being gay. I told her we were having an orgy.)

“Stefen, you can’t just-”

“She literally implied zat you vere,” Steve waved his hand. (Enjoying the company of many women and lying to me.)

“Still!”

(Eh, it got her to shut up. And I did tell her the truth as well.)

“She’s terrible.”

“Ja. I know.”

(I should probably introduce you.)

Steve raised an eyebrow. (You haven’t already?)

(No. It didn’t come up. I mean- I told them I had a fiance…)

(But that’s it.)

(Yes.)

Steve hummed. “Rude. You are very lucky I love you.”

Bucky rolled his eyes and cleared his throat, pushing up his glasses and catching the attention of everyone.  “Sorry, this is my fiance, Stefen Schneider. Stefen, this is Roxy-” the white woman with red hair and a faded band t-shirt.

“-Sophie-” the white woman with blonde hair and hipster glasses.  

“-Angela-” the black woman with short cut hair that was bleached to give it a faded effect. She also had circular wire frame glasses, like Steve. Hers looked better.

“-Maya-” the black woman with braids down her back and a crop top.

“-Tori-” the Latino woman who was wearing a neat ponytail and had a jacket draped over her legs. 

“-Iris-” the woman wearing the hijab. She also had a nose ring, a gold one.

“-and Amber,” the third black woman who had her hair free, letting it poof out a bit.

The women waved and Steve waved back. “Hi!” a few of them said.

“How did you two meet?” Tori asked curiously, saving her place in the book and leaning forward in interest. Alexi jumps up next to her and makes a long noise. She pats him on the head gently.

“We met in Paris a few years ago,” Bucky says. “I was living in France at the time and we hit it off. We moved to the states after I proposed.” 

“Aww,” they went pretty much in chorus.

“The city of love,” Sophie joked.

“I mean, I had to pull him out of a dumpster that some asshole shoved him in, so it wasn’t exactly love at first sight, but close enough.”

They blinked at Steve in particular. “I was having a bad week,” Steve said simply, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose.

(You’re going to regret this, you little shit) Steve muttered into Bucky’s ear. (No sex for you for a week. You just get to watch.) Bucky blinked at him, flushing and his mouth working like he wanted to protest.

“So, your club is going vell, yes?” Steve asked Bucky. Bucky nodded, still flushed. “Good, I’ll leave you to it zen. I’ll be doing some work upstairs if you need me. Have fun.”


	15. Furtive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Furtive: Done secretly; stealthy, sly, shifty
> 
>  
> 
> (And I found a wild Sam!!!)

It was after the seventh or eighth mission that he realized he didn’t have any friends. Well, any _personal_ friends. He had Nat and Clint, but they were spies and Avengers. Bucky was mostly friends with his employees, and he’s gotten along with their other next door neighbor, Sharon, pretty well as well as his book club. Steve and Bucky were also friends with Andy, but Steve didn’t have a friend all for himself.

He didn’t really know what to do about that.

Alexi the cat and Charlie continued to be best friends. Alexi found it enjoyable to sit on people’s backs when they laid down, and wouldn’t let them get up until Alexi wanted to move. It was a little strange to be bossed around by a tiny skin ball, but Bucky just said it was no different than being bossed around by Steve.

Steve glared, and glared more when Bucky kissed his cheek, laughing.

He still didn’t make any real friends. 

He was thinking about this when he out early on a run. Running was good exercise and nobody looked twice at runners. The dark also gave him the cover to do a few tricks if he was in the clear. Running on slim poles, using stop signs to turn sharp corners, practicing some gymnastic moves he used in missions. He was thinking about his friend problem when he spotted another runner out at five in the morning. 

An idea formed in his mind. He slowly passed the man, being sure to make his steps a bit louder than dead silent, and went on. He did a lap and then ran up behind the man again.

“For real? Again?”

Steve did it again.

“C’mon! You’re just showing off!”

Steve laughed and continued his slow pace, just barely faster than the other man. After seeing that he was a bit too far behind, Steve spent a few minutes at the World War II memorial, just thinking about how damn lucky he was and of the lives of all the soldiers that fell during the war. It made him feel kind of sad. He hated that the war took their lives, that many of them were forced to fight a war they didn’t want to.

Like Bucky, only Bucky got out of it alive. 

He gave the soldiers their a salute for their sacrifice, for their lives, and then went on.

He spotted the runner going at it again and followed him, renewing his effort to make a friend by teasing him through running.

“Don’t you do it, don’t you pass me! C’mon! That’s not fair, where are you even coming from?!” The man picked up the pace, attempting to keep neck and neck beside Steve. He was clearly straining himself, huffing and puffing and sweating. Steve grins at him and pulls ahead just a little more.

“You-” gasping “-absolute-” puffing “-maniac!”

The man keeps up for another eight minutes before stumbling off the walkway into the grass, making Steve laugh as he shakes his fist pathetically. “C’mon! Are you on- on steroids!?” the runner says, and then slowly lays down, spread eagle, in the grass, panting.

Steve laps the Washington Monument and buys two Gatorades from a vender. He runs back around to find the guy still there, though now he’s stripped out of his sweatshirt and is laying face down in the greass.

Steve musters up his accent again.  “Guten tag, mein Freund,” he says, grinning as the man glared at him. “Zat was quite ze little jog, no?” Steve pushed up his glasses as they begin to slip down his nose.

“Did you just take another lap? And I was running, man, I was  _ running _ .” 

Steve makes a sympathetic pitying face. “Oh, jou vere? Zat’s adorable.”

“I don’t deserve this sass, I’m dying. Here lies Sam Wilson, killed by being run to death,” the running man turns his head away from him.

“Alas, zen it appears you cannot have zis drink I got for you. It will be vonderful to have by myself.” Steve teases, shaking the blue drink.

Sam, not moving his head, makes a grabby hand at him and Steve puts the Gatorade in his hand, sitting beside the exhausted runner.

Sam flips over and presses the bottle to his face, groaning in relief. He opens it and after propping himself up a bit drinks half of it in one go. “Ah,” he says and then lays down like the dead for a good five minutes. “Thanks.”

“You are velcome,” Steve says. “I felt a bit bad for pushing your poor baby legs past zeir limits.”

“C’mon man, that’s uncalled for.”

Steve grins at Sam’s scowl, opening his red Gatorade. “Stefan Schneider, a pleasure to meet you Samuel,” he introduces, holding out his hand. Sam’s hand is much larger than his, and a bit wet from the condensation of the bottle.

“If a pleasure is having your legs feel like jelly, then yeah,” Sam says dryly.

“Oh you poor zing,” Steve says sympathetically.

“Be nice to me,” Sam whines. “I can’t feel my legs, man. Everything hurts.”

“Zat is on you for pushing yourself,” Steve tuts. “How about ziz; I’ll buy us a breakfast so you can regain your strength.”

Sam eyes him. “I could eat,” he said slowly. “But I can’t walk anywhere far or I will collapse.”

“Zat is not a problem,” Steve said. “I parked my truck a short distance avay. Ve can walk it off and stretch on the vay.”

“What, are you trying to kidnap me?” Sam jokes, half serious.

“You have over forty kilograms on me,” Steve says bluntly. “What could I do to you. Look at me, Samuel.” In reality, Steve could snap him like a twig, but that’s not a proper friend making technique. He would know.

Sam looking him up and down and then makes a face of agreement. “Yeah, okay,” Sam said. “I know a place that serves great breakfasts. Help me up?”

“Ja.”

Steve pulls Sam up, making it look like he’s straining against the larger man’s weight. He grunts as he does it, again reinforcing the fact that it’s hard. “Zere. Now, put on your shirt, Samuel, I am expecting a good breakfast, and I better not be dissatisfied.”

Sam laughed. “Oh you won’t be. They have the best pancakes.”

“I’m intrigued.”

They walked the short distance to Steve’s car and Sam started snickering. 

Steve gave him a sly grin. “As you can see, I am compensating for somezing,” he said and gestured to his height. Sam burst out laughing.

Sam climbs in the passenger side as Steve starts up the car. “I need to call my fiance,” Steve mentions. “Do you mind?”

“Nah, go ahead. I’ll just enjoy this AC,” Sam said, leaning back in his seat and closing his eyes, sighing in relief.

Bucky picks up after two rings.  _ “Hey, buttercup, what’s shakin’?” _

(First, never say that again. Second, I’ve made a friend. We’re going to get breakfast because I outran him and he’s exhausted. I felt a bit bad.)

_ (Oh, okay. So you’ll be back for lunch then? I’m making this mac and cheese that’s vegan? It has good reviews and it’s bigger helping than a box of the stuff.) _

(Sounds good! I’ll be there for sure, this is just breakfast. I just wanted to warn you.)

_ (It’s fine. I made some cupcakes too, by the way. Nat dropped off a baking book and left? I don’t know why, but she told me to have you take her some if I’m any good at it. Turns out; I’m good at it.) _

(Sounds delicious. I’ll text Nat about taking some over at some point.)

_ (Okay, great) _ Bucky replied.  _ (What’s your friend’s name?) _

(Sam Wilson. He’s a runner. Seems nice. Hopefully I’ll learn more over breakfast. I’ve got to go, but I’ll text you soon. Love you.)

_ (Love you too) _ buttercup,” Bucky finished.  _ (Bye!) _

(Bye.)

“Was that… French?” Sam asked.

“Ja,” Steve answered. “Now, vere to?”

Steve rattled off a few directions and Steve pulled away from the curb. “How many languages do you know then, three?”

“At least four,” Steve says.

“Oh, so you might know more than four?”

“I might.”

“My god,” Sam said neutrally.

Steve gave a little mischievous grin and listened to Sam’s instructions, turning when Sam told him. Eventually they got to a small place a few miles from the monuments, people milling about as waitresses and waiters periodically checked in on them. It seemed like a pretty casual place, which was an added bonus. A few tired looking teenagers were inside wearing pajamas, after all.

“Alright, Samuel, impress me,” Steve said, and they got out.

The place was nice. The waiters and waitresses were observant, and the food excellent. Steve ordered a stack of waffles, sausage and eggs with a side of toast, and Sam got hotcakes with eggs and bacon and coffee. While Sam wasn’t looking, he put a dash of salt in. Call him nostalgic.

“Zis is very good,” Steve allowed. “I vill haff to come here more often!”

“All the power to you, man. I found this place when I got back. Hasn’t let me down yet.”

Steve raised an eyebrow at Sam’s words. 

“I was pararescue,” Sam explained. “Fifty-eighth, Pararescue. But now I'm working down at the VA.”

“Zat’s nice. How long how you been out?”

“A few years,” Sam says, and then looks at his face, narrows his eyes and looks him up and down. Steve stares right back, trying to figure out what Sam is seeing. A skinny German with tattoos? Steve had doubts that Sam could see through his disguise or recognize him as the Captain, but he might see a soldier in his eyes.

“And you?” Sam says at last. 

Steve smiles. “I’ve seen action, perhaps. But- let’s talk about other zings,” he says, changing the subject.

“How’s the bed?” Sam says, off handedly.

“Vat?”

“Your bed, it's too soft, right? When I was over there I sleep on the ground and used rock for pillows, like a caveman. Now I'm home, lying in my bed, and It's like…”

“Trying to sleep on a marshmallow. My partener zinks it feels like he’s going to sink to ze floor,” Steve said. “Ve make do.”

Sam nods in understanding.

“Beds are for ze  _ veak _ ,” Steve adds and Sam laughs out loud. Steve wanted a friend untouched by war, but Sam will do just fine.

 

* * *

 

A week later, Steve texts Sam and asks if he wants to go for a run. They met up early in the morning near the monuments. They go slow enough that they can talk in intervals. Sam talked about his day, the woman he was interested in, and he talked about the people he met at work. Steve talks about his pets, the books he’s read lately, and the movies he's finally gotten the time to see.

“Hey, man, I gotta ask you, why the knives?” Sam points at his thin wrist, to the tattoos.

“I am a dangerous man,” Steve says challengingly, making Sam laugh. 

“You think I should get a tat? Some of them look really good. I don’t know though. What should I get?”

“Try looking at Pinterest until you have an idea,” Steve suggests. “You’ll get an idea, trust me.”

“Pinterest. That’s your secret. Pinterest.”

“Art always ends up there on skin or canvas,” Steve points out.

“That’s some poetic shit right there. Hey, you read a lot of books, you read Classified yet?”

Steve nods, not knowing what to say now. As a general rule, he doesn’t like talking about himself, even if he’s talking about himself as a different person. Third person. Yuck.

“I just started. The Captain is a pretty hardcore dude,” Sam says. “Like, what he was before the serum, and all the fights, he should be dead. Doesn’t make much sense, but he seems like a stubborn bastard, you know what I’m saying?”

Steve nods. He is a pretty stubborn bastard. He’s been told that much at least.

“There’s a part I don’t understand though. When he was looking for a job and stopped outside someplace, I can’t remember what, but there was a sign labeled NINA? Looked handmade, I think. You you know what that’s about?”

“Ah, yes, well actually, I do,” Steve says. 

“What then? I been meaning to look it up, but…”

“NINA is an acronym for No Irish Need Apply,” Steve explains, feeling pissed. Not at Sam, but of what the history behind the acronym was. “America has a bit of a history of discriminating against the Irish as well as other ethnicities. Back then everyone saw Irish people as drunks who got in fights and ver basically anarchists. Political cartoons even depicted irish people as particularly ape like.

“I don’t mean to claim that it’s similar to the discrimination against black people, but there were signs that said ‘No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs.’ They certainly considered them to be on the same level and, well, they went along and depicted Irish people like apes, to just show it.”

“Um… Wow. That’s… heavy stuff.”

“Ja. Clearly, the Irish had it a bit better than black people because they were still white so it was easier to see them as equals eventually, but that portion of time, and before it, was particularly unfriendly.”

“Yeah, no kidding.”

They run for a few minutes in silence, the rising sun peeking over the horizon.

“Tell me, have you ever tried freerunning?” Steve asked.

_ “Hell no.” _

“Hmm. Shame. It might spice zis up a little bit.”

“You proposed the run, Steve. This is literally your idea,” Sam argued.

“Ja, I just expected a little more challenge,” Steve said, grinning and twisting so he was running backward in front of Sam. He crossed his arms and put one hand over his mouth, like he was considering something. “Tell me, how well can you race?”

“I am not racing you. I already know you’ll win! You asshole, turn around and make it look like you’re trying dammit!”

Steve laughed. “It might interest you to know I am also a proficient gymnast!”

To prove it he flipped again and sprinted, gaining momentum for some basic movements that should still impress Sam.

Sam started cursing by the second aerial cartwheel.

 

* * *

 

Bucky looked up from his book and his mouth clicked shut. “Steve what the fuck happened to you?”

“Sam pushed me into the Reflecting Pool.” Steve grumbled, pulling his soaking gymwear off his body and listening to it slap against the wood floor. Charlie sniffed at them and looked up at Steve. 

“Did you deserve it?” Bucky asked next as he saved his page and stood up.

“Yeah. I was showing off a bit and laughing at him and he got a good shove in,” Steve admitted. He smiled. “But I had fun!”

“God, I can smell you from here, c’mon, let’s get you cleaned up.” Bucky pushed Steve through the halls. 

“I can wash my own damn self, Barnes,” Steve protested.

“You little punk, you went out with your pal and came back looking like you climbed out of a river, course I’m gonna help you wash off. You’re gonna need all the help you can get!”

Bucky got himself out of his shirt and pants before they even got into the bathroom and turned on the showerhead. He unstrapped his prosthetic and put it on the bathroom countertop.

“Get in, punk,” Bucky said, naked as the day he was born.

“Make me,” Steve said, tilting his chin up. Bucky pinched his nose and Steve yelped.

“Yer already buck ass nude, ya little shit, git,” Bucky slapped his ass enough to make him feel it but not hurt and nudged him again. They both climbed in. “You smell like gross water and sweat,” Bucky said as he took a soapy loofa to Steve’s neck and back.

“I know,” Steve said in annoyance. “But at least the smell doesn’t hurt.”

“Hurts my nose is what it does.” Bucky mumbled. “Yuck, and this guy is your buddy? He pushed you into a monument, literally.”

“He forgot that I’m small and not that heavy.”

“Seems kinda rude,” Bucky pointed out, scrubbing absently at the tattoo down his spine with the loofa.

“He bought breakfast after, it’s fine,” Steve said, waving his hand as he grabs some shampoo and starts rubbing it in his hair.

“That’s good,” Bucky says encouragingly.

“You got any plans tomorrow?” Steve asked, turning to face Bucky. 

“Not really. Britney manages during the weekends, she says it’s good practice and will look good on a resume. She does good work. Why?”

“Good. Lets just stay home and enjoy the day,” Steve says, pulling Bucky down enough to kiss him. 

“Troublemaker,” Bucky grumbled against his lips.

“Love you too.”

“Such a punk, I should just keep you in our room or somethin’.”

“Real creative with yer words there, Buck.”

“Shaddap. Yer just tiny and angry and we’re both naked and I lose my words sometimes ‘cuz it makes you look cute.”

“Aw. Yer cute too, Buck.”

“I’m manly as all hell,” Bucky argues.

“Just take the fuckin’ compliment.”

“I ain’t gonna.”

“Bucky.”

“...Fine. I’m cute.”

“Aw.” 


	16. Eesome

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eesome: pleasing to the eye

Steve wakes up with Alexi curled in a ball in front of his face. “Skinball, why,” he mumbles, giving the cat scratches and then shifts back into Bucky, who sighs and throws his arm around Steve.

“Yer hard-on’s pokin’ my ass,” Steve grumbles.

“Can’t help that,” Bucky mumbles. “It’s gotta mind of its own.”

Steve makes a decision. “Let’s see if I can do somethin’ about that.”

Bucky sucks in a surprised breath.

After making use of the bed, they make a large breakfast and took a nice nap on their hammock. Charlie pranced around with Alexi, playing with rope braids or squeaky toys. Alexi tended to stay close, but he couldn't be out very long because he could get sun burn.

Steve’s mind feels settled. 

Then he remembers anti-vaxxers.

“Gotta fight ‘em,” he mumbles sleepily.

“Who?” Bucky replies.

“E’ryone.”

“Sounds right,” Bucky says agreeably.

 

* * *

 

Late Tuesday night, while Bucky and Steve were watching a James Bond movie, Steve’s phone rang. Confused, he picked it up as Bucky paused the movie.

“Ja?”

_ “STEVE!” _ Sam said loudly, making Steve wince and pull the phone away from his ear.  _ “I’M SO DRUNK.” _

“Samuel? Vhat happened?”

_ “So, I read more of Classified and got to the part where the German doctor guy got shot and I got upset because it made me remember Riley, my wing man, because it felt like I was just there to watch when he dropped outta the sky, and it was the same thing, only different people so I went to the bar and now I’m drunk and the bartender says I can’t drive home and to call someone so I called you because I don’t have too many other friends and I dunno. But I feel great!” _

“Zat’s good. Do you need me to pick you up?” Steve asked slowly.

_ “Um. I think so?” _

Someone else cuts in. _ “Let me see that. Hi, yeah, we need you to pick this guy up. I’m honestly surprised he isn’t suffering from alcohol poisoning. He’s so drunk I don’t even want him taking a cab.” _

_ “ _ Alright,” Steve sighed. “Can I have ze address?”

The bartender rattled off a location and Steve said he thanks and an estimated time of arrival. Steve hung up and looked at Bucky. “Sam’s drunk and needs someone to pick him up.”

Bucky looked unimpressed. Steve shrugged. “He’s my friend. I’ll just take him home and come back.” He kissed Bucky’s cheek. “Love you. Sorry about this.”

“It’s okay,” Bucky sighed, then grinned. “I did the same for you when you were a lightweight.”

“Suck a dick, Barnes.”

“Yours, later,” Bucky promised, and Steve swatted him as he stood.

He grabbed the car keys from the dish by the door, pulled on some boots, shrugged on his jacket, and was out the door.

 

* * *

 

It took Steve four seconds to find Sam at the relatively crowded bar, or maybe it was a club. Either way, Sam was face down at the bar, hand on an empty glass and surrounded by maybe four more. The bartender was looking at him, severely unimpressed.

Steve went over and sighed. “Mein gott, Samuel,” Steve muttered.

Sam groaned.

He turned to the bartender. “Is his tab paid?”

“Yeah, sure. Just get him out of here and home,” the guy said, rolling his eyes and walking away to serve other people.

“Come on Samuel, get up,” Steve said, shaking his shoulder.

Sam sort of sat up, looking around. He beamed at Steve and held up an empty glass. “Hey man what’s up! I FEEL GREAT!”

“Not for long, mein Freund,” Steve said. “Come on, let’s get you home.”

He picks up most of Sam’s weight so they can walk out, Sam stumbling over his feet and wobbling. “Everything spins!”

“Oh, I imagine so,” Steve said dryly. “You smell like rum.”

“I had, like, so many.”

Steve deposited Sam in the passenger seat of his truck and went around the side, sliding in. He turned the key and sat back. “Now, Samuel, vere to?”

“Th’ nest,” Sam slurs and then sort of passes out. Steve crosses his arms and stares at his unconscious form. 

Sam starts snoring into his own shoulder.

“Fine!” Steve says, throwing his hands up, and reaches over to buckle Sam in. Once he’s secure, Steve pulls out of the parking lot. Since he isn’t getting anything out of Sam now, he’ll just let Sam take the spare bedroom and get him home in the morning when he’s sober.

Steve drives home in silence and parks in the driveway. He gets out and pulls Sam over his shoulder to carry inside, kicking the door closed with his foot. “You’re fuckin’ solid,” Steve grumbles, and opens the door, stepping inside and making sure not to knock Sam’s head against the doorjamb.

Bucky looks up from his book and zeroes in on Sam. “Ah, hell,” Bucky grumbles and saves his page.

“He’s drunk as shit,” Steve explains. “Couldn't even give me his address. I’ll keep an eye on him, I swear.”

“It’s fine,” Bucky said and Charlie bounded over to sniff at Sam’s hands. “Just put him on the loveseat. I’ll set the room up and lock up the guns and knives.” He vanished into the hall.

Steve dropped him carefully on the seat and immediately Alexi jumped up to sit on Sam’s chest, sniffing at his goatee.

Sam sort of grunted and pushed Alexi’s face away in his sleep, and the cat looked deeply unsettled by this. Charlie sniffed at Sam’s face and Sam flipped over to get away from the dog. This resulted in Alexi jumping up and scrambling off the couch, thereby waking Sam up.

Sam was a tangled mess of limbs, so he fell right onto the floor, slipping off the couch. “F’k.” Sam slurred and managed to get himself to a standing position. Sort of. He keeps wobbling.

“Perhaps you should sit,” Steve suggested.

“Nah, man. Sittin’ is for chumps,” Sam said. “S’this your house? S’nice!”

“Ja, danke.”

Sam reached out and clumsily patted his head. “Soft little German guy. Wahdaya use in your hair? I gotta get me some of that.” He wanders off, Steve following closely. Sam spots Alexi and immediately drops to his knees. “Kiddy kiddy kiddy! You are so ugly you’re cute.”

Steve pulls out his phone to start filming because this would be excellent blackmail. Alexi, after the disastrous couch meeting, doesn't budge. Charlie, however, is still very interested and starts sniffing up Sam again.

“Big kitty,” Sam says, amazed, petting Charlie. “Fluff ball cat.”

“Zat is a dog,” Steve says.

“Nah man, big cat. I know my animals,” Sam says defensively as Charlie licks his cheek a few times. “I want some crackers,” he then announces, and gets back up to his feet to wander around, eventually finding the kitchen. “Wow, all this is new ain’t it? S’prettier than my stuff.”

Sam starts rummaging through cabinets, eventually finding a box of Ritz crackers. They’re probably a little stale by now because the last time Steve and Bucky ate those was last week when the weather was nice and called for a backyard picnic. “Bon appe-fucking-tit!” Sam says and then sits on the floor to eat his apparent spoils.

Bucky comes back and joins Steve in watching Sam drunkenly eat their food, hugging Steve from behind and putting his chin on the top of Steve’s head.

“He looks like he’s feeling better,” Bucky comments.

“Ja. He is still very drunk, but he is no longer unconscious.”

Sam looks up with hazy eyes. “I just ‘membered I don’t like Ritz crackers. Hey, who’re you?”

“I’m Chris. Stefen’s fiance?” Bucky says, unimpressed with one eyebrow raised.

“Oh yeah, you!” Sam says in rapid realization. “Man, you are built like a Mack truck. You could crush the little guy.”

“See?” Steve says, looking at Bucky and gesturing at Sam. “I told you so. And also, I resent being called little.”

“Bro, I got like six or seven inches on you and a hundred pounds. He’s got a foot and 200 pounds.”

“Ten inches, actually.” Bucky protests. Charlie cocks his head at Sam. “I’m six one, he’s five three.”

“I am good at birds,” Sam says suddenly, surprisingly clear and precise.

“Oh ja? How so?”

“Aw, man, I gotta show you!” Sam says and stands up, wobbling heavily. He stumbles down the hall and then out the back door. “Ay, yo, birds!” he says loudly. Steve watches as a bird flutters down from the tree and cock its head at him, cheeping. “Yeah, hey, yo, whassup man?” Sam asks, he looks at Steve. “Birds just get me.”

The bird in question lands on the porch railing but bounces closer to Sam when he starts whistling, mimicking bird calls. The bird gets’s close enough for Sam to clumsily pat, but the bird decides he’s had enough after that and flies back into the tree.

“Yeah, man, whatever.” Sam stumbles back inside. Steve followed, still filming. “It’s too warm,” Sam suddenly complained and struggled out of his shirt as he leaned against the wall.

Bucky whistled. “I can see why you like him.”

“Chris, really,” Steve said, unimpressed.

“I can appreciate a muscular form,” Bucky said. “The guy works out!”

“I do!” Sam agreed, flexing. Steve would agree with Bucky; Sam is pretty well-built. His core muscles are spectacular and his arms aren’t anything to laugh at. “I work out so hard. Th’ runnin’ and I do weights and stuff at the gym. My bod is worth, like, a bazillion dollars.”

Steve snickers into his palm.

“My body is a damn temple!” Sam says. “I gotta take a piss.”

Steve directs Sam to the bathroom and looks at Bucky.  “This is hilarious,” Bucky says.

“It is not going to be hilarious when he starts zrowing up,” Steve points out.

Bucky grimaces and almost as soon as he says the words, they hear vomiting from inside the bathroom. They both wince.  “Yeah, that’s your friend, that’s on you. Make sure he doesn’t break a rib,” Bucky patted Steve on the shoulder and walked off.

“You asshole,” Steve scowls, momentarily dropping the German accent.

“And that-” Bucky points at the door. “-is your asshole. So.” He shrugs. “It’s late, I’m goin’ to bed. I’ll see you there when you get him settled.” He kissed Steve quickly and wandered upstairs, Charlie thumping after him. Alexi was sitting on the stairs and meowed as Bucky passed.

Steve sighed and knocked on the door, leaning close so he can hear inside. “Samuel? Are you decent?”

He got a groan in reply and opened the door. Sam was down to his underwear and he was on his knees, head on the toilet seat. Well, Steve thought, at least he made it in. He leaned over and pushed the handle down, flushing the toilet. Steve got a cup from the cabinet and filled it with water, tapping Sam’s shoulder.

“Svish and spit,” he advises.

Sam throws up twice more before he say’s he’s done. “I wanna play solitaire,” Sam says miserably. 

“I’ll get you a pack of cards if you come upstairs to the guest bedroom,” Steve offers. “And take zis bucket.”

“Yeah, man.” Sam took the bucket and let Steve lead him up the stairs and into the guest bedroom. Sam dropped the bucket on the side of the bed. “Hey, man, you got any orange juice? I love orange juice. I wanted to grow oranges when I was little, but I joined the air force instead.”

“It just so happens zat I do,” Steve said. “I’ll get the cards vile I’m at it.”

“You're, like, a tiny angry angel, man.”

“Danke.”

Steve grabbed a deck of cards from the living room and got the jug of orange juice along with a plastic cup. He brought them upstairs and watched as Sam spread out the cards and drink a full cup of juice. Technically, two cups half full because Steve didn’t want him to spill it all over the bed.

“My wingman, Riley,” Sam says suddenly, more clear than he was a minute ago as he shuffled the deck with clumsy hands. “It wuz a standard PJ rescue op, nothing we hadn’t done a million times before, and an RPG knock Riley’s dumb ass out of the sky. Nothing I could do. It’s like I was up there just to watch.”

Steve sat on the bed and rubbed Sam’s back soothingly. Poor guy… He couldn’t even imagine losing Bucky like that. He’d come close, but still. That heart-wrenching terror, then the defeat and agony of having to watch Bucky fall would have… driven him mad. If the same turn of events that brought them both to this century happened just with Steve he might have jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge.

Sam played a pretty decent game of solitaire and then dropped off holding an ace of spades. It was pretty funny. Steve put a blanket over him, capped the orange juice because Sam refuses to let go of the jug in his sleep, and turned off the light.

He found both Bucky and Charlie in the tub, taking up all the space, so he dressed in sleep clothes, brushed his teeth, and climbed under the sink. He had a pillow and some blankets down there, so he was very comfortable as he fell asleep.

 

* * *

 

Bucky and Steve woke up before Sam did, evidently. Sam was still passed out face first into the bed, cards sticking to his skin and Alexi on his back, staring with wide eyes at Steve as he checked in. This being, it was Wednesday morning and he was going to train with Natasha in a bit. They started up on breakfast; waffles with bacon, eggs, and toast.

They had Bruno Mars record playing on their record player and Bucky kept whistling along, bumping Steve with his hips. As he danced to the tunes.  _ “It's a beautiful night, _ ” Bucky sang with the music. “ _ We're looking for something dumb to do. Hey baby, I think I wanna marry you _ .”

Steve couldn’t help the delighted laughter that bubbled up.

_ “Is it the look in your eyes? Or is it this dancing juice? Who cares baby? I think I wanna marry you.”  _ Bucky takes Steve and spins him, falling into a sort of clumsy dance. Steve can do formal dances easily, but the swaying intimate dance always get’s the best of him. He quickly turns off the burner of the eggs without stopping.

_ “Well I know this little cha-pel on the boulevard we can go-oh-oh,”  _ Bucky sings as they sway, Steve chuckling into Bucky’s shoulder.   _ “No one will kn-oh-oh. Oh c'mooon hun. Who cares if we're trashed? Got a pocket full of cash we can blow; Shots of Patron. And it's ooooon huh. Don't say no no no no no. Just say yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah! And we'll go go go go go. If you're ready! Like I'm ready! 'Cause it's a beautiful night, we're looking for something dumb to do. Hey baby, I think I wanna marry you. _

_ “Is it the look in your eyes? Or is it this dancing juice? Who cares baby? I think I wanna marry you.” _

Steve spots Sam out of the corner of his eye and turns to look at him fully. Sam looks vaguely panicked, vaguely ill, and has a three of hearts stuck to his forehead. 

“Uh, Stefan?” Sam says, pained. “Why am I here, and where are my clothes?”

“Ah, guten morgen, Samuel. Feeling any better?” Steve asks as Bucky spins him back to the stove.

“No,” Sam says miserably. “My head is splitting and apparently this is your house?”

“Ja. I had to pick jou up from ze bar,” Steve explains as Bucky sits and picks up the paper. He shakes it a bit to get it upright and starts scanning as usual as Steve serves food. He grabs three plates and starts to serve them. “You ver very drunk and passed out before giving me your address, so I took you here.”

(Interrupted a perfectly good movie) Bucky grumbles, and Steve pats at his face. He’s wearing his glasses, as usual, so the action screws them up. Bucky fumbled between the paper and his glasses, his prosthetic jumbled in the mix.

Sam peeled the card off his face and looked at it. “What’s with the cards?”

“Jou vanted to play solitaire,” Steve shrugged, putting a plate down. “Now eat some food and I’ll take you home.” 

Sam sat. Steve served Bucky and then just leaned against the counter as he ate, unlike the other two, who took stools on the other side.

“Do you have any Tylenol or ibuprofen?”

“I am afraid not,” Steve said. “We haven’t yet had a need. But here’s some vater.” He fills a glass and passes it over.

Sam rubbed his temples. “Okay, I deserved this. So…” Sam said. “Did I … Embarrass myself?”

“Mm-hmm,” Bucky confirms, not looking up from his newspaper.

“Samuel, consider the single piece of clothing you are vearing and ask me zat question again,” Steve says solemnly.

Sam groaned and put his head in his hands. “It could be worse,” Sam said then. “You have no idea how glad I am that this is your house. I woke up in a strange bed with a carton of orange juice and a tattooed  _ goblin _ in a bed of cards and my first thought was ‘shit, was I so drunk that I broke into someone's house, drank their orange juice and played cards with myself?’ Man, I thought I was gonna get arrested.”

Steve laughs into his hand.

“Bro, this ain’t funny! Like, I scramble up, got hit with my hangover and fell back into the bed. I tried looking for my clothes and found your gun locker and my second thought was ‘oh shit, did I break into a  _ white Republicans _ ’ house’ because you know those guys love their guns and I thought I was gonna die!” Sam paused. “You aren’t Republicans, are you? I mean- that’s fine if you are, I just thought-” He looks more panicked now, hastening to explain himself.

“We aren’t Republicans or conservative or what not,” Steve confirmed. “And you are, in fact, quite safe here,” he promises and then checks his watch. “ _ Scheisse, _ ” he hisses, and then scarfs down the rest of his waffle. If he has to take Sam somewhere and then get to the Triskelion, he’ll be late if he doesn’t hurry. Natasha would try to kick his ass or stab him, claiming that lack of punctuality brought that upon him.

“Eat faster,” Steve says, pointing, and then jogs through the house. He collects everything of Sam’s and tosses them at the startled man.

Steve grabs his keys, his wallet, stuffs a snack bar in his pocket, and puts a knife in the sheath on his back, hidden by his shirt. He slides down the railing and back to the kitchen, finding Sam dressed and most of his breakfast eaten. Sam looked ready to go.

Steve slid over to kiss Bucky goodbye and then turned to Sam.

“Samuel, come with me. I’ll take you home,” he says and Sam nods in a slight daze. They left and got into the pickup without question, Sam rambling off an address. Steve puts it on his phone and attaches it to the dash, backing out.

“Uh, what’s the hurry?” Sam asked.

“I don’t vant to be late for work,” Steve explains. “And it is, of course, Vvednesday. A work day. During ze week.”

“Oh fuck, that’s right, Jesus, Stefen, I’m sorry,” Sam says guiltily.

“It… it is your fault, but I really do not mind. You are my friend. I’ll drag you out of every bar in ze state if I have to,” Steve says and then slams on the acceleration to make it through a yellow light. He gets caught at the next one, though, and sighs. He notices a homeless man holding a sign a couple feet away. His sign reads  _ ‘Please help, food or money is appreciated.’ _

Steve digs in his pockets and pulls out a five and his snack bar. He openes his window and offers them.

“Thank you, man. Bless you,” the homeless man says, taking them and shoving both in his pocket.

“Take care of yourself,” Steve replies, and then the light turns green. He slams on the acceleration. “Plus, now I have blackmail,” Steve says to Sam after a while.

“...You what?”

“You ver very certain zat my dog vas a cat,” Steve says honestly, grinning. “ ‘Nah man, big cat. I know my animals.’ “ he quotes, mimicking Sam’s voice as best he could.

Sam blinks at him. “Wow. That was… really good.”

“I am an excellent mimic,” Steve says neutrally and swerves to avoid a careless driver on his phone. He puts his middle finger up, scowling, and finishes his turn. “I could sound American if I vanted, but I am content vith my accent,” he finishes and pulls up to the curb in front of Sam’s house. It’s a nice white building that looks well taken care of and the bushes are neatly trimmed.

“Thanks for the ride,” Sam says. “I’ll text you later,” he promises. “Tell… Chris? I’m usually more put together and less hungover.”

“Have a good day Samuel.” 

“Hey, and if you ever need a place to crash, I’m on the second floor. Just go through the front and up the stairs. I owe you one, alright?”

“Danke.” The minute Sam is a safe distance away, Steve pulls away and swerves, speeding away and revving the truck’s massive engine. He’s at HQ in about ten or so minute, and hastening through security and to the gym they reserved. He dressed and walked in, finding Natasha already in the middle of a stretch.

“Oh, hey, Steve, glad you could join me.”

“Sorry, I had to drop my hungover friend at home,” Steve apologized. “What’s the plan for the day?”

“You ever been trained in seduction?”

“Natasha, please.”

“I’ll be helpful! I already signed you up for pole dancing classes.”

“Natasha.”

“Don’t worry. I did it for me too. We’ll be buddies.”

Steve sighed.

Bucky ended up appreciating the lessons more than Steve, but Steve did like spoiling him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter starts the Winter Soldier dealio! Prepare!


	17. Incalescent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Incalescent: growing hotter or more ardent; set ablaze

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright! So we're getting into the real stuff now! For further chapters, I will be putting warnings at the beginning if I think they're necessary.
> 
> This chapter has the gassing people so they're knocked unconscious and minor violence. 
> 
> If you think anything else needs to be mentioned, feel free it write it in the comments!

“I want to try sleeping on a bed,” Bucky announces one night.

Steve blinks at him. “Um, really?”

Bucky nods. “I’m gonna do it. We shouldn't be sleeping in a tub. It’s probably bad for us. I wanna try to be normal.”

Steve feels a little struck by those last words. He kinda liked cuddling with Bucky in the tub. It felt safe, especially with Charlie sleeping outside it and Alexi trying to squeeze in. Badly, but still.

Bucky doesn’t notice his reaction. “I’ve been practicing with napping on the couch,” Bucky says. “I wanna try it.”

“Okay,” Steve mumbles dubiously.

That night is kind of not great. Bucky’s got him all wrapped up and is sleeping comfortably but Steve feels like he going to sink out of Bucky’s arms. He manages short naps in between the sensation of falling, but it really wasn’t pleasant. Maybe he should try naps on the couch as practice too.

Steve goes out on a spontaneous mission. It’s on water, which Steve does not like. He hates the water. He’s small and dense. He sinks like a rock. He can swim better than Phelps, but he still sinks if he isn’t moving.

Brock Rumlow explains as they approach. “The target is a mobile satellite launch platform: The Lemurian Star. It was sending up their last payload when pirates took them, ninety-three minutes ago.”

Steve reads over the screen. “Let me guess, they want something.”

“A billion and a half,” Rumlow confirms.

Steve frowns. That’s a lot more than what he would expect to hear. “What, did they just snag a ship and go, ’huh, we need some lunch money, this is a good way to go about it?’ Who do they expect to pay that?”

“It SHIELD's,” Rumlow explains and Steve feels himself die a little inside. He sighs heavily.

“So it's not off course, it's trespassing,” Steve says, looking at Natasha in particular. She pulled him out of a date for this. They were eating burgers and sharing milkshakes and he was enjoying himself and now he finds out that the whole thing is SHIELD's fault and he has to clean it up.

“I'm sure they have a good reason,” she says neutrally.

Steve sighs again and adjusts his new helmet. It’s not the same one he prefers, but a form fitting one that protects from all angles and covers more than his mask does. “Okay, how many pirates do we gotta deal with.”

Rumlow taps at the screen, pulling up images. “Twenty-five, top mercs, led by this guy. Georges Batroc.” He shows a picture of a gruff looking white man with a buzz cut. “Ex-TGSE, Action Division. He's at the top of Interpol's ‘red notice.’ Before the French demobilized him, he had thirty-six kill missions. This guy's got a rep for maximum casualties.”

Steve grimaces. “And how many hostages?”

Brock seems a little surprised at this but flips through their intel. “Uh...mostly techs.” Who are important living breathing human beings, Rumlow, get it together. “One officer, Jasper Sitwell.” Oh, because one high ranking man is more important than all the techs, of course. “They're in the gallery.”

Steve frowns a bit. Sitwell, to his knowledge, is a paperwork guy. He handles a lot of things Steve doesn’t particularly concern himself with, including mission briefing and tracking progress. “What's Sitwell doing on a launch ship?” He mumbles and then thinks about the logistics of this mission and the abilities and roles of the team he was leading. “Alright, I'm gonna infiltrate and place canisters of knock-out gas in the air filtration systems and any major areas. Nat, I want you to go kill the engines. Rumlow, you’re on hostage duty. If the one’s guarding the hostages realize something is going wrong, they’ll start firing and I think we all want to avoid that.”

“STRIKE, you heard the Captain. Gear up!” Rumlow says to the others.

“Secure channel seven,” Steve says to check. 

“Seven secure,” Natasha replies, shrugging on a parachute. “Hey, how’s your new pal?”

“Sam?”

“Yep,” she confirms. “I did a little digging. Not too much, just what you can find on the internet. He’s clean. Nice guy. No facebook, but he’s got a twitter. He’s following you, BTW.”

“Nat,” he sighs.

She shrugs.

“Coming up by the drop zone, Cap,” Rumlow warns. Steve hits the panel to open the cargo door and listens to wind stream in. He puts his shield on his back and double checks his knives and guns, all fitted with silencers. He quickly clips seven canisters of gas onto a bandolier and walks toward the drop zone.

“Hey, have you listened to Beyonce yet?”

“Who?” Steve asks, internally grinning at her frankly offended look. He snorts and then bursts into chuckles.

He draws her hand up with finger guns. “Bang! Bang!” she whispers. 

Steve hand goes dramatically to his chest and he falls backward off the jet, laughing. Initially, he flips so he’s on his back, putting his hands behind his head casually, looking up at Nat as she dropped, spread eagle style. He see’s her flip him off and laughs again.

He spins around and gets into drop position in the air, limbs spread out so he could control the fall until he got out of the clouds, wind whipping at his cheeks. When he clears those, he narrows his body like a dark and zips toward the water even faster, barely a blur. Just before he hits the ocean, he flips again so his feet go first. He hits hard and if he wasn’t enhanced, it would have broken his knees and most of his bones, most likely.  

He surfaces again, watching as Nat joined him, ditching the parachute in the water. Together, they swim for the ship, treading water silently. He climbed up in less than a minute, Nat on his heels, and put the first pirate he saw in a headlock, dropping him noiselessly. Nat gives a salute and vanishes. Steve hides the body and strips him, dressing in his stead and mimicking his patrol. 

Steve covers his face with the collar of the guy’s shirt and a hat that’s just a little big, feigning yawns when he get’s close to obscure more of his face. When they pass, Steve comes up behind them and shoots exposed neck with a fast acting tranq. He then hides the bodies where he can. By the time he makes it to the air regulation and filtration units, he’s managed to avoid attention. He sets two canisters in there and rigs them to start streaming gas into the air on his mark.

From there, he finds the more guarded areas and subtly manages to place the other four equal-distance throughout the hull of the ship. He goes up on deck again to strip off and grab his stuff and locates Batroc just as the STRIKE team touches down. 

Rumlow hands him a sniper rifle. “Thanks,” Steve says and straps it to his back.

Rumlow scoffs, putting on his mask as he does so. “Yeah. You two seemed pretty helpless without me.”

_ “Hey, while we’re talking, and I secured the engine room, should I bring my albums over after or…”  _ Nat says.

“Finish the mission, you can come over to talk music later,” Steve replied. ”STRIKE, get in position. Wait for any sign of them catching wind of the gas or its effects. If they so much as raise a gun, you’re clear to move in. If you’ve dealt with the hostiles, and the prisoners are conscious enough to move, you get them in evac. If they don’t notice before the gas takes effect, and the prisoners go out too, you stay and guard them.”

_ “And I do what?” _ Nat asks.

“As soon as STRIKE moves in, you shut off the engine and circle back to help guard them.”

Steve watches STRIKE move into work, gas masks on. When they’re in position, Steve mumbles, “Activating gas canisters.”

From there Steve shoots the audio device at the window where Batroc is waiting, sitting almost motionlessly in his seat. He has a guard beside him, waiting. As soon as it attaches to the window, everyone’s quiet words go silent. 

_(I do not like to wait. Call Durand. I want the ship ready to go as soon as the rescue arrives.)_

_ (Yes, Batroc... Durand. Start the engine.) _

“Nat,” Steve whispers.

_ “Yeah, I got it.” _

“Everyone in position. Now,” Steve says, and then moves locations for a better vantage point.

After a tense minute, one of the men says,  _ “Targets acquired.” _

_ “STRIKE in position,”  _ Rumlow adds.

“Natasha, what’s your status,” Steve asks quietly, keeping his eyes on his target. He gets nothing in reply. 

_ “Ready to rock and roll,”  _ she then says casually.

Steve closes his eyes. “Could you please take this seriously. There are lives at stake.”

_ “Sorry.” _

_ “I’ve got groggy pirates. I think they’re onto something,” _ Rumlow warns. 

“Fine. On my mark,” Steve says. “Three. Two. One.”

Steve runs out and throws his shield hard as the sounds of gunfire echo around the ship. Batroc stumbles to the side, affected by the gas. Unfortunately, this means Steve hits his companion. Steve climbs up through the broken window, expecting Batroc to be gone. Instead, he gets kicked in the chest hard enough to make him stumble. Batroc darts off, stumbling, but quick as a rabbit. Out in the fresh air, he’d snap out of it soon enough.

Steve watches him go and then runs for his shield, yanking it out of the wall and chasing him down.

_ “Half of the hostages are unconscious. We’re sealing the room and airing it out until we wake them up.  Romanoff missed the rendezvous, Captain.” _

Steve curses and comes out into open space, looking around the ship deck for Batroc. “Natasha, Batroc is on the move. Get back to Rumlow and protect the hostages.” He gets no reply. “Natasha!”

Something dark flashes in the corner of his eye and Steve yanks up his shield in time to block a strong kick. A second knocks him off balance and he rolls with the motion, sliding back in time to avoid a foot slamming into his crotch. He looks up and makes eye contact with his mark. They both scramble up, exchanging hits and kicks in a fast furious pace. Batroc is good, very good, and surprisingly strong. 

Steve mostly blocks Batroc’s attacks, not wanting to hurt the poor guy when he was trying so hard. It was kind of impressive.

Steve slams his shield into Batroc and watches the man take the fight in, eyes flicking over Steve’s tiny form. He charges again and this time Steve flips him, hoping he’ll smack to the ground like the others. Nope. The asshole does some fancy gymnastic bullshit and then they face off for a second.

By the time he lands it, Steve has his rifle trained on him.

_ (What are you, the captain of the cheer squad? Don’t move or I’ll put a bullet in you. I’m taking you in.) _

Batroc looked highly offended and his cheeks colored. _(A man that has to hide behind a mask and a gun is a weak man)_ Batroc spits back, eyes narrowed.

“Est-ce vrai?” Steve replies, unable to help grinning just a bit as he lowered the gun. “On va voir.” 

Batroc watches as the gun touched the ground, followed by Steve strapping the shield to his back.

Steve lets the guy try to rough him up a bit, but when he gives Steve an opening he just has to take it. Get the thing over with. When Batroc charges him again, Steve kicks his knee out, slams his fist into Batroc’s chest, and then finishes with a spinning kick to the face. Batroc drops like a stone and groans on the ground. Steve was surprised that Batroc managed to push himself up again.

Steve is actually impressed. But, that means that Batroc is a little tougher than his average Joe and needs some... Persuasion.

The door makes a great splintering sound when Steve tackles him through it. Batroc, miraculously still conscious after being tackled through a door, is out with one solid punch.

“Well,” a voice says to his left. Steve looks over, spotting Natasha. She’s still wearing her gas mask, so her words are muffled. “This is awkward.”

Suddenly angry, he stands up and storms over. “You were supposed to regroup with Rumlow to protect the hostages. What the fuck are you doing here?” he asks, bewildered and frustrated.

“Backing up the hard drive, it’s a good habit to get into.”

“Rumlow needed your help, god dammit Natasha!” Steve looked at what she was doing, the screens, the monitors. She was downloading something from the servers on the ship. “You’re saving SHIELD intel,” he realizes. He says his words with disdain. Even in the forties, the SSR prioritized hostages over intel. Sure, they wouldn’t mind both, but it was the man over the mission.

“Whatever I can get my hands on-”

“Our mission was to rescue hostages, not this bullshit Natasha!” Oh, he’s pissed. This was… this was frustrating. Very frustrating.

“That was your mission,” she says, pulling out the flash drive. “And you’ve done beautifully.” She pats him on the shoulder and Steve grabs her arm.

“You jeopardized this whole mission, dozens of lives, for a stick of data.”

“I think that’s overstating things,” she says trying to placate him.

There’s a sudden shuffle over by the door and Batroc is scrambling to his feet, throwing something that was beeping at them. Without thinking, Steve grabs his shield and swats it away, where it continues to beep on the floor.

Grenade.

They need to get to cover immediately. He grabs Nat slightly below the waist and lifts her with ease, running down the row of monitors and using his momentum to jump up on the ones to his right. He leaps for the window as Nat fires a shot at them, shattering the glass and making their escape into the room easier. The fiery explosion follows them in and Steve covers Nat with his shield as it rumbles.

He is very glad the guys at SHIELD made sure the gas wasn’t flammable. Otherwise, this could have been very bad.

They push themselves back against the wall, Steve peeking over the shattered glass window. Batroc is long gone and, well, everything is on fire.

“Okay,” Natasha says. “That one's on me.”

“You’re goddamn right it is,” Steve growls and pushed himself to his feet. “Go help Rumlow get the hostages on deck.” He doesn’t look back at her. He’s still pissed. At her, and at whoever gave her a mission besides the one they were initially assigned.

He want’s answers, and if he knows anything, it’s that Natasha doesn’t crack.

 

* * *

 

Steve likes the aesthetic of Fury's office, the wide, multi-purpose space, but he’s too angry to take a good look around as he storms over to the desk. “You just can’t stop yourself from lying, can’t you?”

“I didn’t lie, Agent Romanoff had a different mission than yours,” Fury counters simply.

“That you felt I didn’t need t’know about about,” Steve argued, coming up in front of the desk, putting his gloved hands on it and leaning forward, broadcasting his itch for a fight. It’s a good intimidation tactic and worked well despite his thin form.

“I don’t have to do anything,” Fury says, looking out the window.

“Those hostages coulda died, Fury,” Steve says at last.

Fury finally turns around. “I sent the greatest spy in the history of our nation to make sure that didn’t happen. And would you look at that, you didn’t let me down.”

“A team’s gotta have trust, Fury, that’s what makes it a team, not a buncha people runnin’ around and shootin’ guns. Trust is what makes the team, and frankly, I’m not feelin’ a lot of it here.”

“Last time I trusted someone-” Fury starts, standing up and matching Steve's posture. “-I lost an eye.” He cocks his head slightly, squinting. ”I didn’t want you doing anything you weren’t comfortable with, Agent Romanov is comfortable with everything.”

“I can’t lead a mission if the people I’m leading have missions of their own.”

“It’s called compartmentalization,” Fury snaps back. 

“I’m a spy just like Natasha, Nick. I know that sometimes you need more than one thing done at a time. What I’m trying to tell you is that I need trust. I need to know if someone has to go off to do their own thing. I need to know if the people I’m leading can be in position or not because sometimes that position is a matter of life or death!”

“You can’t spill secrets if nobody knows ‘em all,” Fury points out. Steve is fairly certain he’s thinking about the possibility that Steve could get captured and interrogated on a mission, but it hasn’t happened yet.

“Except for you, clearly,” Steve says, unimpressed. 

Fury stares at him for a second. “You’re wrong about me,” Fury claims as he straightens. “I do share. I’m nice like that.”

Fury makes a little motion with his hand and leads Steve back to the elevator. As soon as they’re in, Fury says “INSIGHT bay.”

_ “The Captain does not have clearance for Project INSIGHT.” _

“Director override. Fury, Nicholas J.”

_ “Confirmed.” _

Steve leans against the railing, watching the elevator go down. Fury does the same, only with open arms, feet crossed a bit. Steve crosses his arms. It’s quiet. Almost too quiet, so Steve says. “You know, they used to play music.”

Fury gave a little huff of a laugh. “Yeah. My grandfather operated one of these things for 40 years. Granddad worked in a nice building. Got good tips. He'd walk home every night, a roll of one's stuffed in his lunch bag. He'd say, ‘Hi.’ People would say, ‘Hi’ back. Time went on, the neighborhood got rougher. He'd say, ‘Hi.’ They'd say, ‘Keep on steppin'.’” With these words Fury adds a little threatening note to his words, looking right at Steve. 

“Granddad got to gripping that lunch bag a little tighter.”

“He ever get mugged?” Steve asked. He had gotten mugged once or twice when he was just a sick weak and angry punk. He fought back, but all it took then was a good whack to the face. It wouldn’t be surprising. 

Fury nodded slightly. “Every week some punk would say, ‘what's in the bag?’”

“Yeah?” The sun streaming through the glass darkens as they go under the facility. Steve glanced around, instinctively looking for an exit if one was needed. Hatch on the roof.

“Yeah, and he’d show ‘em; a bunch of crumpled ones, and a loaded .22 Magnum.”

Steve blinked in surprise. Fury must have noted his surprise without seeing his eyes because he chuckled. “Yeah, Granddad loved people. But he didn't trust them very much.”

Suddenly the windows cleared again and Steve was allowed to look out. He, admittedly, took a double take. His jaw dropped.

Fury grinned. “Yeah, I know. They're a little bit bigger than a .22.”

Helicarries. Three huge helicarriers armed to the teeth with giant guns. Steve watched hundred of people skitter around, doing some job or other. Quinjets were being lifted up and placed on their decks, scientists and engineers were everywhere, talking seriously about some data or construction detail.

The enormity of it made Steve’s head spin. He felt small. Very small, looking up at one of these. He wouldn’t say he was afraid, not quite, but he was unnerved.

“This is Project INSIGHT,” Fury announced, leading him down a walkway above the project. “Three next-generation helicarriers synced to a network of targeting satellites.”

Steve put two and two together easily. “Launched from the Lemurian Star.”

Fury nodded. “Once we get them in the air, they never need to come down. Continuous sub-orbital flight, courtesy of our new repulsor engines.”

“Stark?” He knew a thing or two about Tony’s tech by now. Including the arc-reactor and repulsor technology. Top of the line, clean energy efficient.

“He had a few suggestions once he got an up-close look at our old turbines,” Fury agreed. “These new long-range precision guns can eliminate one thousand hostiles a minute. The satellites can read a terrorist's DNA before he steps outside his spider hole. We're gonna neutralize a lot of threats before they even happen.”

Steve frowned. “Thought the punishment came after the crime.”

Fury snapped a look at him. “We can't afford to wait that long.”

“Who's ‘we?’”

Fury looked back to the helicarriers, hesitating. “After New York, I convinced the World Security Council we needed a quantum surge in threat analysis. For once, we're way ahead of the curve.” He sounded proud and based on his posture and the way he held himself, shoulders back, chest out, hands clasped behind his back, he was proud too.

“By holding a gun to everyone on Earth and calling it protection,” Steve snapped back.

Fury turned toward him, defensive. “You know, I read those SSR files. The ones we dug up on you are particularly an interesting read. You did some nasty stuff when you broke into facilities.”

Steve felt like saying ‘I can do a demonstration,’ but he refrained, just letting his lips quirk. “I did what I had to. Fighting a world war is a bit different from holding enough firepower to kill thousands at once just in case someone might be planning something that might work. I had to do things I’m not too proud of. Sometimes in ways that made it hard to sleep at night. But I did it, my team helped me do it, so that people could be free. This isn't freedom.” He gestures to the monstrosities. “This is fear.”

“S.H.I.E.L.D. takes the world as it is, not as we'd like it to be. And it's getting damn near past time for you to get with that program, Cap.”

“Don’t count on it,” Steve says and then walks back toward the elevators. He wants to go home and take a nap with Bucky. He feels tired. He smokes his pipe on the trip back, knowing that Bucky will bitch at him for smoking in the truck, but to frustrated not to.

He slams on the steering wheel a few times, furious, but careful not to break it.


	18. Advesperascit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Advesperascit: The approaching dark; the evening draws near

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for gun shot wounds, blood, and attempted assassination!   
>  (Spoilers and not; it's Fury.)

Bucky was surprised by the impromptu nap session but was content to let Steve shoves his face into Bucky’s chest, arms wrapped around his stomach, and take a nap on the couch. He’s still in his disguise, minus his glasses because those press into his face annoyingly when he has his face touching anything. Charlie and Alexi decided it was a good i a too, because Charlie curled up at the end of the couch and Alexi was using Charlie as a bed.

“So, what’s botherin’ you?” Bucky asked after about an hour and a half. Steve’s been awake for ten minutes, but pretending to sleep. “Don’t think I can’t smell the smoke.”

Steve sighed. “Fury’s pissin’ me off.”

“Aw, buttercup,” Bucky said sympathetically.

“S’okay, It’s just I think something’s up and I’m gonna have to check it out.” Steve sighed. “And I’m a little stressed by that. And I’m angry at Nat for not telling me something that was mission vital. I’ll get over it, but I’m still sore about it.”

“How ‘bout this to cheer you up; let’s go to the Smithsonian,” Bucky offered. “And then we go get coffee and buy a cake from Walmart to eat in the car.”

“... chocolate cake?”

“You betcha. Or we could get a pie. Or both.”

That sounds nice.

“And maybe when we get home…” Bucky trails off, literally grabbing Steve entire ass in one hand. Steve openes his eyes and gives Bucky a very unimpressed look. This look continues for a good minute before Steve sighs.

“Fine.”

Bucky laughs.

Steve dresses as Stefen and Bucky as Chris. Charlie gets his vest on and leash and then they’re out the door. Alexi sits on the windowsill and watches them leave passively.

 

* * *

 

The Smithsonian is a lot of fun and relatively relaxing. The Air and Space exhibit is breathtaking and they have a lot of fun looking through the Natural History Museum. As a lovely coincidence, there are a few stuffed wolves at once exhibit and Bucky spends a good minute telling Charlie that those dogs are his ancestors. Charlie doesn’t care, but he does love the extra attention and wags his tail excitedly nonetheless.

Eventually they discover that a World War Two exhibit was actually currently installed in the Smithsonian. Specifically, a exhibit about the Howling Commandos and their contribution to the war effort.

They both fumbled with asking each other if they wanted to check it out, in a terrible mumbled mix of French and English with Steve accidently throwing a German word in every now and then but they decided to have a look.

They were both maybe holding each other hands too hard as they hesitantly made their way in. The majority color theme appeared to be black, grey, white, red, and a little bit of blue.

Steve was in awe. The photographs and film that they had donated a while ago were all up and active. 

The image that greeted them was one Monty took, a picture of Steve from behind, head turned enough to show his pipe and the smoke stream above it but almost none of his face, and his sniper rifle in hand and lowered. He appeared to be cut out of the picture, big text in front of him with the name of the exhibit. “The Howling Commandos: The Spy, the Soldiers, the Mission.”

From there the exhibit led them to a room full of the information that they could gather on the Howling Commandos. Their names, their specialization, their lives. Some even had gear they used, or replicas used to show the equipment they handled.

There was a good hall-like section dedicated to the masterminds behind Hydra and what Hydra was. The portrait of Skull, still defaced, was present.

There was a map showing every base that the Howling Commandos infiltrated and destroyed, a number broadcasting how many men total their efforts had saved, excluding the additional millions of citizens when they prevented the bombing of the USA, and an estimate of the soldiers that were saved when Steve stole information telling the location of Nazi troops on the frontlines and relevant files.

It was…. A pretty big number.

Steve looked at it and felt denial niggling at him. That number couldn’t be possible. It was in the millions and he felt tiny under it. Bucky threw his arm over Steve’s shoulders and tugged him away from its towering authority. The walls were filled with photographs, including a section that had been colored by modern technology. Silent film from the stupid camera the Commandos dragged around was there, in a repeating loop against the wall.

One such film was of him from the side, sitting on an old log and smoking while he surveyed a map, a pencil working across the paper and marking what they would do. There was a brief description of what historians assumed Steve was doing and the ingenious tactical plans that were displayed on the sheet. Steve flushed at the description.

There was a bulletin board full of political comics including the Howling Commandos, a room with recordings and headphones so you could listen to the recorded announcements that were broadcasted after each mission. There were magazine and newspaper articles. One that said that Bucky and he had died taking out Skull, one Time Magazine cover that labeled Steve as the most dangerous spy in history.

There was a small section on his queer identity and relationship with Bucky, including some clips from his book.

Then there was a great room of Steve and Bucky. On the right was Bucky and all the history they got on him and the other was full of Steve. Two full body pictures, one from the 40’s and the other from the press conference that came after the Battle of Manhattan. The one from the forties was of him standing, holding his sniper rifle up with the chamber perfectly parallel to the ground.

Bucky’s was more comprehensive than his own, of course, but they did have a good deal of history and facts and statistics jumbled with the estimates for Steve. They didn’t have his height, weight, visual descriptions, or parentage, but they did have an estimate for the year he might have been born in as well as the ages he gave to the press a while ago.

(This is something, isn’t it?) Steve asked Bucky, in Japanese, to test his memory.

“Uh (I agree. Much special.)” he replies in a thick accent, carefully considering his words. Steve snickered. “What?”

(You said it wrong) Steve said in French. (It’s okay, you’re very amusing.)

Bucky scowled. (You haven’t spoken Japanese in many years! I am rusty, yes, but I understood what you said!)

(There, there,) Steve soothed. (Remember, you are cute. Use that. And it is good practice, no?)

(I am good with French and English. I have passing spoken German. That’s more than most Americans. Leave me alone) Bucky grumbled.

Steve laughed and grabbed Bucky’s hand. (I will forgive you and not salt the wound.)

(I would thank you, but I remain unthankful.)

“Goddammit, we live in America, speak  _ American _ ,” someone grumbled nearby.

“I vould if I could find a tutor in Navajo or Cherokee,” Steve snapped back immediately. He knew a bit of Navajo, from the Navajo Code Talkers, but those were mostly nouns and he was certainly not fluent.

The man seemed surprised that Steve even knew English and hastened away, vanishing into the crowd. A Native American woman with a pretty amazing braid standing a few feet away nodded at Steve in respect and continued reading the passages on the wall.

(Anyway...) Bucky said. (Let’s continue.)

The next room was playing a documentary and Steve and Bucky took a seat, Charlie settling between Bucky’s feet. They watched for a while, muttering in French how some of the historians were wrong or how their conclusions were off. Bucky kept joking about theories that the historians were putting out with great gusto.

And then suddenly Peggy was on.

“I can’t say much,” she announced firmly. “Who he was and his missions probably won’t ever come to light, honestly, and I’m not allowed to say much else, but I will say the Captain is the best man I’ve ever trained. He picked up on lessons quickly and was a tactical genius, very good at figuring out what to do in a situation and how to up mission success. He was an excellent spy. He could do anything he set his mind to and was a brilliant actor.” She nodded to herself. “That’s all I can say.”

“Aw, Peggy,” Steve mumbled and felt Bucky lean against him. (I wish we could visit her, but she’s in a nursing home in England.)

(We could go sometime, when we can catch a break) Bucky offered.

(Perhaps. But she has dementia. I’m worried about confusing her too much, you see?) He was. He didn’t want to stress her and he know that she came to terms with losing Steve and Bucky in the war. She was a strong woman, still is, even in her nursing home. She accomplished great things and Steve would respect her to his dying day.

“Oui,” Bucky replied.

Charlie started sniffing at Steve and wagging his tail. Steve played with Charlie's fluffy ears for a while and then they went on.

“I believe I promised you cake or pie,” Bucky reasons. “Let’s go do that.”

“A man after my own heart,” Steve say, batting his eyelashes.

“Punk, I got your heart already.” Bucky holds up his prosthetic, the ring on the fourth finger snuggly.

“Ya got me there.”

 

* * *

 

Sitting in the truck and eating an entire cake as they people watched, they eventually drew the attention of some amused teenagers who took pictures and then asked if they could post them online. They agreed.

(Steve later found it with the caption of ‘Ideal date ideas; eat an  _ entire cak _ _e_ in the car with your SO while people watching.’)

After that they ate an actual dinner out at some diner that made a mean burger and had pretty decent fries. The cook looked at Steve and then made his burger bigger than the usual size, citing the need to put some meat on his bones. Steve, of course, ate it all and the cook looked extraordinarily pleased.

They tipped well and left after.

When they got home, the first thing Steve noticed was that a window was partially open. The second was that the door was unlocked. He could tell from where he was already.

Steve stopped dead in his tracks and put his arm out to stop Bucky. “Go through the back. I’m going through our room,” he said quickly. “Dead silence. Leave Charlie in the back and grab a gun on the way forward. I’ll grab my shield and meet you halfway.”

Bucky’s eyes widened and he looked devastated for a minute. He then nodded once and started moving as they rounded the back. Steve unlocked the back and then climbed up the porch roof and quiety stepped over to the window, picking the lock he had there. In seconds he was inside, soundless. He grabbed a second handgun, his sniper rifle and it’s harness, and his shield. He didn’t reform it, because it would be too loud, but he started downstairs, sliding down the railing and landing on the rug they had without a noise. He looked back and spotted Bucky. He nodded once and motioned forward, putting the gun up. He could hear the soft music through the entire house, and realized it was coming from the living room.

He nodded once and motioned forward, putting the gun up. He could hear the soft music through the entire house and realized it was coming from the living room.

Steve looked around the corner into the living room and found a person sitting in their chair, leaning back casually. The light from outside highlighted their features just enough to recognize the man there.

Steve sighed and slumped back, tapping his head against the wall. “Didn’t your mother teach you it’s rude to break into someone's house, Fury?”

“Damn. I knew there was something she missed,” Fury said dryly and then grunted as if in pain.

Steve shook his shield out, no longer caring about the noise it makes and handed it to Bucky, who strapped it to his arm instinctively. Steve walked into the living room, sighing in frustration and flipping the light on, one hand already on his hip to start arguing with Fury about something. He looks back at Fury and freezes. Fury looks like hell. He’s cut up and bruises and his arm might be fractured or broken based on how he’s holding it. Alexi meowed at the sudden light, sitting and blinking blearily on the couch.

Fury made a motion to be quiet and mimed flipping the lights off.

Steve did so, waiting for an explanation.

“My wife kicked me out.” 

Bullshit. “I didn't know you were married.”

“A lot of things you don't know about me. I'm sorry to have to do this, but I had no place else to crash.” Fury shows his phone, the light illuminating brightly in the dark.  _ ‘Ears everywhere. SHIELD compromised.’  _

Steve feels a lot of things at once. Boiling rage, all encompassing denial and exasperation, sudden realization and paranoia, the itch for his guns and his shield and goggles. He puts a gun in each hand and looks outside. He wants to hit his head against the wall. He subtly mouths ‘I’m going to kill you’ at Fury who looks like he understands.

“Who else knows about your wife?”

Fury kind of stands up and wanders closer, fiddling with something in his other hand as he shows his phone. “Just... my friends.” _ ‘Just you two and me.’ _

Steve looks at Bucky, who looks terribly uncertain, but with that little tilt to his eyes that say’s he’s ready for a fight. Steve nods to him slightly and Bucky adjusts the automatic in his arms.

“Is that what we are?” Steve challenges.

“That’s up to you,” Fury offers, and that’s when the window shatters and the sound of gunfire fills Steve’s ears. Fury gives a small strangled shout and collapses as bullets lodge in his back.

Bucky moves immediately, pulling Fury out of the living room and into the kitchen. Steve, on the other hand, drops his pistols, yanks the gun from Bucky’s arm, and kicks their door down, the wood soaring across the porch and cracking on the lawn. He starts firing at the van the assailants were shooting from, focusing on disabling it.

Bullets rip across the side and fracture the window that holds up to the barrage Steve is giving it. Steve crouches as more gunfire targets him and he slides the notch down to rest his gun on it. They retreat inside, Steve having clipped two of them but failed to hit any vital points. From there, the van rumbles on, the engine revving loudly in the otherwise quiet neighborhood. They shriek down the street. Steve sees movement from Andy’s house, someone looking the window, but that’s not his problem right not. Steve drops the shield and automatic and runs down his lawn to get a better angle as he takes his rifle off his back, firing and reloading repeatedly. 

Still nothing. None of the windows even break. The tires don’t blow out either. Steve makes the motion like he’s going to throw his gun down in frustration and then doesn’t when they vanish around the corner. He hears noise from the other side of the street; Andy, her husband, and their boyfriend making noise in the wake of the gunfire.  Behind him, Kathy and somebody else, likely her husband. It’s happening all down the street, actually. Dammit.

He looks back to his house, the windows shattered, paneling full of bullet holes, the door shattered on the front lawn. It looks wrecked and makes him feel frustrated and miserable.

Something moves out of the corner of his eye and he trains his gun on it. It’s Sharon, holding a handgun and the other hand out peacefully. “Captain,” she says. “I’m Agent 13 of SHIELD’s Special Service. I’m assigned to protect you.”

“Who said I need protecting?” Steve demands.

“Director Fury’.”

“Get in,” he points to the house. “Fury’s down.”

He leads her inside, then to the kitchen, where Bucky had his hands over the bullet holes, trying to stall the bleeding. Sharon falls to her knees and checks over Fury. Her hand shoots to a comm. “Foxtrot is down, he’s unresponsive. I need EMTs.”

_ “Do you have a twenty on the shooter?” _

“Negative. Shooters got away.”

Soon enough, ambulances pull up in front of the house as well as SHIELD law enforcement. Steve had hastily shoved his shield away and provided Stefan Schneiders SHIELD ID when they asked for it.

Out front, through the flashing blue, white, and red lights, he can spot all his neighbors on their doorsteps, he can stop SHIELD agents taking off the area as well and advising people to stay back. Rick and Ben are on their porch, wide eyes and staring with their father behind them and Kathy fuming on the porch steps.

“I told you,” She announced. “Those queers are just trouble! Look at how close this- this- whatever it was to our house! Our children!”

“Kazy, could you  _ give it a fucking rest _ !” Steve snaps from his porch. He can’t handle this right now goddammit.

He goes upstairs for his pipe and heads out back as they rummage through their living room. The smoke soothes his prickling skin and fiery confusion as he breathes it in and out.

They’ve just loaded Fury up and Steve’s planning on following after, but Bucky clearly has something to say.  He squeezed Steve’s shoulder and Charlie comes over to circle Bucky. Alexi was shivering and following Charlie around. The miracle cat got dust all over him, but avoided bullets or blood. It was kinda cold out, so Steve took the time to put a cat sweater on him.

(Here.) Bucky whispers in rushed French. (Fury gave this to me. He said to trust no one.) He passed a flashdrive, an unassuming flash drive with a SHIELD logo over it. What was it for, what did it do?

Steve takes it and shoved it in his pocket. (I’ll keep it safe. Keep a gun on you. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Pretend this was a home invasion or something.)

Bucky nods. “Please be safe,” he begs. 

“I will be. I swear,” Steve promised, holding Bucky’s hands. “I swear it. Till the end of the line, I’m with you and I’ll be okay. You stay safe too. Go over and stay with Andy, take the pets and anything you think is important enough to take.”

Bucky nodded. 


	19. Quisling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quisling: traitor; someone who has lost your confidence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for blood, extreme violence, gore, minor character death, character secretly faking their death (you know who it is), and betrayal (also should be easy to guess).

Steve rode his motorcycle to the hospital, tailing the ambulance and following Hill’s instructions when he got there. At last, he came to the surgery viewing room, Natasha already standing there watching. Rumlow was present but was pushed to the side a bit.

“Is he gonna make it?” Natasha asked quickly.

“I do not know.” He’s still using Stefan Schneider's voice for this. He’s not trusting anybody and as far as they know, Fury was shot at Schneider's house. He wasn’t sure how Fury was going to shake this off. He took at least three bullets and that has a pretty high fatality rate. Steve was bubbling with conflicted emotions. He was confused about what happened. Wanted to ask Fury what this drive means. He wanted to shoot the men who did this. He was concerned about Fury’s survival. He was anxious and angry and confused and wanted to beat the shit out of someone. 

“Tell me about the shooter.”

“Shooters. A van full of zem. Maybe four or five men. No plates. The van vas armored. Zey had automatics and rifles.”

Hill joins them again. 

“Ballistics?” Natasha asks her.

“There was a mix, but he was hit with three slugs. No rifling and completely untraceable.”

“Soviet made?”

“Yeah.”

They watch as the doctors and nurses rush around the area, fixing the damage to the best of their ability. There’s equipment everywhere and medical speak flying around.

_ “He’s dropping,”  _ a doctor announces urgently.

_ “Crash cart coming in,”  _ a nurse informs him, walking to help with the equipment.

_ “Nurse, help me with the gauzes, please. BP is dropping. Defibrillator!” _ He’s flatlining. Dammit, don’t fucking die Fury, Steve has too many questions for that. _ “Charge to one hundred.” _

“Don’t do this to me, Nick,” Natasha says desperately.

_ “Stand back! Three, two, one. Clear!” _

Fury’s body jerks on the table and falls back. Steve pressed his hand to his mouth.

_ “Pulse?” _ a doctor asks.

_ “No pulse,” _ the other answers.

_ “Okay. Charge to two hundred, please. Stand back! Three, two, one. Clear!” _

He shocks Fury again, body lurching and falling back. Steve feels stuck and trapped and guilty about everything. He didn’t fire the gun but there must have been something he could have done.

_ “Give me epinephrine! Pulse?” _

_ “Negative.” _

Natasha continues muttering anxiously. “Don’t do this to me, Nick. Don’t do this to me.”

Fury isn’t recovering. His pulse is still flat. They can’t help him. Steve closes his eyes and puts a hand over them. He feels Natasha try to clutch at him in her anxiety and lets her. Her arm fits over his shoulder with ease and her other grabs his upper arm like a vise. She’s so much taller than him. The medical officers start pulling back, their quick movements now defeated.

_ “What’s the time?” _

_ “1:03, Doctor.” _

_ “Time of death, 1:03 A.M.” _

Dammit.

Dammit.  _ Dammit.  _ **_Dammit!_ **

 

* * *

 

Natasha stands over Fury’s body, looking at him with something Steve’s can’t name with her blank expression. Steve is standing by the door, standing guard for her, to let her have her moment with him.

Hill slides up next to him. “We need to take him.”

Steve shoots her a look and she gives one back. He sighs. “Natasha.”

She doesn’t respond, she just gingerly touches Fury’s head and spins on a dime, walking out the door. Steve, unsure of what else to do, follows her.

“Why was Fury at your house?” Natasha suddenly asks, whipping around.

“How the hell vould I know?” Steve lies, incredulous.

Rumlow passes them and spots Steve. “Agent Schneider? They want you back at SHIELD.”

Steve sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Please, I need a moment.”

“They want you now. Councilman Pierce also sent along the message ‘Blackbird.’” Which meant that Steve had to report in in his costume, as the Captain. He’d heard of Peirce but never met him. From what he knows, he’s a decent guy, good reports, good work, a good councilman.

“Fine.” Rumlow leaves with the rest of his crew and Steve presses his lips in a firm line as they go.

Natasha considers him. “You’re a good liar, but I’m better.” She whirls around and walks off, leaving Steve alone in the hall. The reality of the situation hits him again and he tenses. Something is wrong, and this flash drive means it all. Steve feels it burn a hole in his pocket and looks around. He’s not leaving it in the damn vending machine, anybody with ten bucks could get to it, but maybe-

He visits the men’s restroom before he leaves with Rumlow and stands on the stall to reach the ceiling. He quickly slides the tile aside and puts the flash drive close the wall, hiding it behind some wires and piping.

Satisfied, he drops. He flushes the toilet and washes his hands to make it convincing before letting Rumlow escort him back to SHIELD HQ. They go let him take his bike, luckily, and just followed behind him.

 

* * *

 

Dressed and back at SHIELD, his shield strapped h s back and guns where they’re meant to be, he walks toward Pieces office, Fury’s office previously. He lets his anger boil at the back of his mind, preparing him for anything. Rumlow had gone off when they arrived, so he isn’t escorting him like a prom date anymore.

He’s almost to the office when he spots Sharon. He doesn’t have any reason to interrogate her over what she did or is, but he can’t help but not look her in the eye as he passes.

“Captain,” she says.

“Neighbor.”

Peirce spots him and smiles slightly. “Ah, Captain. I’m Alexander Pierce.” He offers his hand and Steve shakes firmly.

“Sir, it’s an honor.”

_ Trust no one.  _ He doesn’t. He doesn’t like the way Peirce looks, the way he moves. There’s something off about him, a certain tone that Steve feels in the mistrust in his heart.

“The honor is mine, Captain. My father served in the 101st. Come on in.”

Peirce leads them over to a little sitting area, not the desk, and grabs an old photograph from the table. There’s files spread about as well, but Steve can’t tell what they’re for.

“This photo was taken five years after Nick and I met.” He passes it over, letting Steve look. “When I was at State Department in Bogota. ELN rebels took the embassy, and security got me out, but the rebels took hostages. Nick was deputy chief for the SHIELD station there. And he comes to me with a plan. He wants to storm the building through the sewers. I said, ‘No, we’ll negotiate.’ Turned out the ELN didn’t negotiate, so they put out a kill order. They stormed the basement, and what did they find? They find it empty. Nick had ignored my direct order and carried out an unauthorized military operation on foreign soil. He saved the lives of a dozen political officers, including my daughter.”

Steve considered. “So you gave him a promotion.”

“I’ve never had any cause to regret it,” Peirce agreed.

Steve wondered where this is all going. Something tells him he’s in for an ear load.

“Captain, why was Nick in your house last night?”

“He said he wife kicked him out,” Steve replied, remembering the part where Fury admitted to their house being bugged. He doesn’t know to what extent, but that conversation was verbal for a reason. If they heard anything, it was that.

“Fury isn’t married. So, did you know your house was bugged?” Pierce asked next.

“No,” he narrows his eyes, threading his fingers together and leaning on his knees. “But in retrospect, I suppose I should have.”

“Did you know that he was the one who bugged it?”

Steve’s looks at him, scanning the man from head to toe without moving his head. He can see that he’s trying to turn Fury against him, but something happened to Fury before he came and so far, this puzzle isn’t fitting together in any way that should convince Steve to give Fury up.

Pierce considers and says, “I want you to see something.”

He takes a remote and turns around, turning a projection on on the wall to show some footage to Steve. Footage of Batroc being interrogated, facing the camera and looks tired and roughed up.

“Is this live?”

Pierce nods. “Yeah, they picked him up last night in a not-so-safe house in Algiers.”

“Assassination isn’t Batroc’s MO. Are you saying he’s a suspect?”

“No, it’s more complicated than that,” Peirce proclaims. “Batroc was hired anonymously to attack the Lemurian Star and he was contacted by e-mail and paid by wire transfer. And then the money was run through seventeen fictitious accounts, the last one going to a holding company that was registered to a Jacob Veech.”

“Am I supposed to know who that is?”

Pierce shakes his head as he passes over a file. “Not likely. Veech died six years ago. His last address was 14-35 Elmhurst Drive. When I first met Nick his mother lived at 14-37.”

Steve considers the information in front of him, as well as Peirce's method of turning his side, getting him to give up Fury.  “It’s a bit of a stretch. Are you saying Fury hired the pirates? Why?”

Peirce leans back casually, claiming all control of the conversation, all authority. “Well the prevailing theory was that the hijacking was a cover for the acquisition and sale of classified intelligence. The sale went sour and that led to Nick’s death.”

Steve’s lips quirk. That sounds like anybody but Fury. “If you really knew Nick Fury you know that’s not true.”

“Why do you think we’re talking?” Peirce maties a motion with his hand. “See, I took a seat on the Council not because I wanted to but because Nick asked me to, because we were both realists. We knew that despite all the diplomacy and the handshaking and the rhetoric, that to build a really better world sometimes means having to tear the old one down. And that makes enemies. Those people that call you dirty because you’ve got the guts to stick your hands in the mud and try to build something better. And the idea that those people could be happy today, makes me really, really angry.”

What? Steve’s mind goes. Tearing down the old world? He can understand starting from scratch, taking new methods, but destroying what they already have sounds extreme. And the little enemies bit sounds a bit odd. It just sounds off somehow. It sounds like foreshadowing.

Peirce hesitates. “Captain, you were the last one to see Nick alive. I don’t think that’s an accident, and I don’t think you do either. So I’m gonna ask again, why was he there?”

“I’m telling you, Sir, I just don’t know. But I will say I intend to find out.” He adds a bit too much tilt to his voice and he sees Peirce shift.

They sit in silent a moment, neither giving ground. Steve nods in finality and ends the conversation. “Scuse me.”

“Captain.”

Steve looks over his shoulder, not turning anything else and listens.

“Somebody murdered my friend and I’m gonna find out why. Anyone gets in my way, they’re gonna regret it. Anyone.”

Steve’s lips quirk at the thinly veiled threat. He’s got what he needs now.  “Understood.”

 

* * *

 

Now that he has a semblance of a lead, he steps into the elevator. “Operations control,” he requests. If a SHIELD team was deployed to attack Fury, he’d know when he checked with Operations control. Even if it wasn’t on record, there’d be something.

“Confirmed.”

Before the elevator can close fully, Rumlow waves his arm between the doors and steps in with a nod of respect to Steve. “Captain.”

“Rumlow,” Steve nods.

He turns to the two agents following him, “Keep  all STRIKE personal on site.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Understood.”

Steve eyes them and clasped his hands behind his back, standing near the back of the elevator to make room for the three larger men, each nearly a foot taller than him. 

“Forensics,” Rumlow requests and get’s a confirmation. Forensics is one of the lower levels.

“Evidence Response found some fibers on the street they want us to see. You want me to get the tac-team ready?” Rumlow asks Steve.

“No, let’s wait and see what it is first,” he dismisses.

Rumlow nods. “Right.”

Steve notices one of the STRIKE agents touching his gun and lets out a breath. Right. Nothing to be worried about yet, but a little more than concerning. Sometimes these men had nervous ticks, it’s likely that having a hand on a weapon makes them feel safer. No use being paranoid yet.

After a minute, the elevator stops again and more people get on. Four more SHIELD agents. They’re talking to each other about something and request the administration level.

“Excuse me,” one of them requests and Steve steps out of the way obligingly. He’s now in the center of the crowded elevator and something uneasy pricks at his mind. He crosses his arms, tapping his foot slightly.

“Um…” Rumlow starts, catching his attention. “Sorry about what happened with Fury. Messed up what happened to him.”

“Yes. It is. Thank you.”

Steve looks around and notices that they’re all refusing to look at him. Even after a minute of prolonged viewing, the man next to Steve directly avoids his gaze. He’s sweating, despite the air conditioning and generally cold temperature of the facility. It’s possible that they were overheated from working, or sweating because Steve makes them nervous, but he suddenly finds that unlikely.

More people get on the elevator. Three of STRIKE’s hardest hitters, some of the heavyweight champ types. They’re taller than Bucky and maybe buffer too, big and towering. Ten total now and they’ve… moved him to the center of the elevator. Their presence forces him to shift until he’s surrounded.  They’re all going to the lower levels, making their time in the elevator extended. 

He’s in for a fight. 

He feels the sting of betrayal and disappointment creep into his heart. He clenches his fists. He’d pity them if he wasn’t ready to punch them through the chests. Steve sighs in annoyance and watches the ones in front of him tense. When he doesn’t do anything, two of them look over their shoulders, down at him. He moved his hands and cracks his knuckles subtly.

“Before we get started, does anyone want to get out?”

There’s a momentary pause, the air still and silent.

“Actually, y’know what? It’s not worth-” the sweating one started nervously.

Before Steve could do anything, Rumlow pulled his gun and shot the man point blank in the face, blood and bone and brain matter splattering the glass. Steve started, ducking away, and then barely dodged a sizzling cattle prod into his stomach. Luckily, because of his small stature, he easily slipped out of the way and redirected it to someone else's crotch. Two down. Someone hit the stop button and the elevator stalled violently, rocking slightly.

An arm looped around his neck and the rest of them surged against Steve, slamming him against the bloodied wall, Steve struggling and swearing and fighting against his captors. Someone has their arm around his neck and his arms are held far apart. Several are holding his legs and on top of that and his shield is pulled off his back. He feels his guns and knives being yanked off his person, clattering to the ground.

The men with briefcases yank the handles off, revealing disguised magnetic handcuffs. He should have noticed. With them keeping him pinned, they snap the first on his right wrist and try desperately to push his arm over to the metal around the elevator. Steve, growling with effort, pushes against the magnetic force and the efforts of his enemies, fingers clawed.

With them pushing his wrist toward the metal, there’s no one pushing up to keep it in a straight line. He yanks his hand down and away and lashes out, whacking one away. He kicks out with a free foot, listening to someone's knee crack. That of course, offers a weakness on that side, an instability. He grabs one by the throat throws him into the man second cuff. The device flies from the man’s hands and clamps against the wall.

With his legs free, he kicks someone in the chest hard enough to knock him back against the wall, thwacks another in the throat, and elbows the last in the head. To deal with the man putting him in a headlock, he bites his arm hard and when he feels weakness, he flips him over his shoulders, letting the man slam onto his fallen companions. The blood tastes like rust in his teeth and he spits onto the floor, growling threateningly.

Abruptly, Rumlow kicks Steve’s wrist, making it fly back to the metal of the wall and stick there. Steve tried to yank it down, dangling a bit because of his short stature, and was unsuccessful before Rumlow activated his taser, electricity zapping wildly. Rumlow goes to hit him in the head with his weapon and Steve blocks with his arm swiftly, then lashing out to catch Rumlow head. He misses and Rumlow slams the prod into his side.

Electricity courses up his spine and makes his teeth ache. First bracing his free hand against the glass, he pulls back hard, catching Rumlow in the head with his sharp elbow and knocking him away. He catches another by the shoulder, and throws him up into the ceiling, breaking the camera there.

Another man tries the taser approach and Steve redirects that to his buddy’s chest with a neat shift of position. The man seizes against the voltage and stumbles back. Steve jumps up, lashing out and kicking both in the head at the same time.

Someone comes to sucker punch him and Steve grabs his fist. Without a second thought, Steve brings up his leg and swings it around the man’s elbow, yanking down and hearing it dislocate. The man doesn’t have time to shout in pain because Steve kicks him across the face, making him fly back into the glass wall.

Having a moment, he jumps up, putting his boots against the glass and pulling his wrist to get the magnet off the wall. Slowly it pulls back and when it jerks free, he completes a backflip and lands solidly on his feet. He punches Rumlow in the face and then focuses on downing the second man. Steve kicks him in the nuts and when he crumples, Steve grabs him by the shoulders and spins, throwing him into the wall. He slumps to the floor, unconscious. 

Steve turns on the last man standing; Rumlow. He’s got both tasers in hand and he’s crouched a little holding his hands out like it’s going to keep Steve back.

Steve is breathing like a bull, teeth bared and fists clenched, anger simmering at the surface. He spits out some blood, still from the man he bit, and Rumlow shuffles back a bit. 

“Fucking  _ try me _ , Rumlow.”

Rumlow it still taller than him, but Steve is more dangerous and they both know it.

“Woah there, Cap.” Rumlow says cautiously. “I just want you to know, this ain’t  _ personal! _ ” 

He swings the taser down and Steve leans away, catching the second taser instead. He left an opening. Sloppy mistake. Rumlow slams the first taser into Steve’s side and Steve shouts again the electric current. He smacks Rumlow’s hand away and aims a strike at Rumlow’s face. Rumlow dodges and repeats the first maneuver, pain erupting on Steve’s side again. Now that Rumlow thinks he’s got the upper hand, Steve gets his hand free and punches Rumlow across the face. He then grabs Rumlow’s shoulders, knees him in the face, and throws him up against the ceiling of the elevator.

Rumlow falls to the floor and stays there, blood streaming from his nose. 

Panting in anger and from the workout he just got, Steve spit, “It feels pretty fucking personal.”

He looks around, surveying the damage and then steps on the edge of his shield. It flies up and he slips it on his arm, using the edge to break off the cuff on his wrist. Sighing, he taps the open-door button and goes to walk out, wiping his mouth off and spitting again. Gross.

He’s surprised by the small militia outside. “Drop the shield! Put your hands in the air!”

Yeah, fuck that.

Spinning, Steve slashes the shield through the glass and cables of the elevator. The elevator drops like a stone and Steve crouches to prevent any excessive damage to himself. Wind roars past him and after a few seconds of the rush of falling, the brakes kick on the slows the elevator with an awful squeal. It jars to a stop and Steve struggles to maintain his balance.

Steve is up in a flash, trying to open the second pair of elevator doors again. It’s a bit tall, but he manages and is able to peer through the slit the door makes. Again; a STRIKE team and all the guns one could desire. He closes the door.

The building is unsafe. He needs to evacuate as fast as possible. He can’t use the exit above him, that would just get him further into the building, so his only choice is to…

To go out the fucking window. Self defenestration. He peers outside and grimaces. That’s a good distance alright, with nothing to soften his fall. He sighs in frustration and and then steels himself.

_ “Give it up, Captain! Get that door open! You have nowhere to go!” _

Oh yes he does. Fuck you. He backs away a few steps, adjusting the shield on his arm and then jumps for the window, the glass shattering outward and sending him in freefall. He spreads his limbs to slow his fall the best he can, but it doesn’t help as much as he’d like.

Just before he hits the glass ceiling, he curls up on his shield, making himself a tiny canonball. The glass breaks with a shattering crack under him and he feels the jolt of metal beams and then he’s falling again, unsure how much farther until he’ll-

He slams hard into the floor, the wind driven out of him and pain sparking up his side. He feels like he broke a rib or two, but he probably just bruised his side pretty good. He’s covered in glass shards and he bets that if he wasn’t wearing his helmet and goggles there'd be glass in his hair too. He groans and shifts so he’s on his hands and knees, the shield supporting his side more than his arm, struggling up to stand and then running full tilt for the garage.

He has to punch a few more agents on the way, but then he’s finally on his bike, shield on his back, and gunning it for the rapidly closing exit. He barely makes it through and when he’s on his way out, he gets a second present. Road spikes and a quinjet that have his name on them.

_ “Stand down, Captain, stand down!”  _ the pilot broadcasts over the intercom.

Steve speeds up, in fact, putting both arm up and flipping the ship off. They, expectedly, open fire. Steve weaves in and out of gunfire and then suddenly throws his shield at the turbine. It jams loudly and the ship falters in the air, dipping on one side. Just when he get’s close to it, he slams on the front brake and launches himself at the quinjet. He flips using his fingertips and rolls, then stopping where the shield was jammed.

He yanked it out and the ship abruptly overcompensated, tipping upward. With this, Steve was tossed to the side, so he slammed his shield into the end of one wing and flipped up when righted again. Landing on the center of the roof, he threw his shield at the engines and then jumped off, grabbing his shield and landing on his feet in a crouch on the road.

The quinjet crashed into the road behind him loudly and Steve booked it. He ran until he found a vehicle, stealing it and speeding home immediately and leading two or three cars on a wild goose chase. Bucky wasn’t safe and Steve needed to get him right now.


	20. Obdormition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obdormition: when your limbs fall asleep; numbness caused by pressure on a nerve

He pulled up to Andy’s house in a black Honda Civic, immediately getting out and running to the door. He knocked several times, frantic, and looked over his shoulder. No cars, no people. Good. C’mon, answer the door.

Joey opens it after a second, wide and open. Poor technique, if Steve was holding a gun he could have easily plowed inside. No, stop that line of thought. “Stefen? Hey, are you okay? You’ve got-” he gestures to Steve’s face and Steve pats at it, wincing when he feels little bits of glass and the stickiness of blood. 

“I am fine. I need to speak to Chris immediately, please.”

Joey gestures for him to come inside and Steve finds Bucky sitting on the couch, Charlie on his lap and Alexi on Charlie's back, still in his cat sweater.

(We have to go. Right now.)

Bucky looked at him, at his cheek, at his posture and the outline of a gun under Steve’s shirt. (What’s happened?)

(I’ll tell you on the way but we need to  _ go _ .) Steve grabbed his hand and tugged a little.

“What about Charlie and Alexi?” Bucky asks.

(It’s too dangerous to take them) Steve replies. (We don’t want them getting shot and killed. It’s bad. It’s really bad.)

Bucky flinched. “But-”

“We can’t afford to take zem,” Steve said roughly. “I know, I know, it isn’t preferable but ve need to  _ go now _ .”

Joey, now concerned and standing awkwardly by the entrance to the living room is joined by Andy. “Oh hey, Stefen- Jesus christ, what happened to you?”

“Chris, please,” Steve says urgently. They stare into each other's eyes for a minute and Bucky’s face falls. He clutches Charlie close and then relaxes his arms. 

“Okay,” he says, pained. “We’ll be back though, right?”

“Yes. As soon as this mess is over,” Steve agreed. “Andy, can you pet-sit for us for a vhile?”

“That’s kind of short notice…” She frowns. “What’s wrong?” She asks, concerned.

“Nozing you need to worry about,” Steve says. “Chris, make arrangements. I need to get some things from the house and I’ll meet you outside, okay?”

Bucky nods. “Did he- (Did Fury die?)”

Steve nodded and then stormed out of the house. He ran for their ruined home and scrambled upstairs. He got all the guns in the house in a duffel bag as well as his fake identities. He grabbed his wallet, his phone, his knives, his Hydra guns, and a few grenades. And the special cat food for the neighbors.

When he collected his weapons, clothes for the both of them, and the stacks of loose money he had stashed in a shoebox, he ran back out to the car. Bucky was hugging Charlie on Andy’s porch. Steve dropped the food off and thanked them again, rushing back to the car.

“Chris!” Steve called urgently and looked out his window to make sure no one was on to them yet.

Bucky looked over and nodded, ruffling Charlie's ears one last time before jogging over to the car and climbing in. Charlie, unsure of what was happening, jumped down the front steps in the adorable bouncy way he did. Bucky wiped at his face and sniffed.

“I want my dog,” Bucky says roughly.

Steve feels horrible but know’s he’s right. “I’m really sorry Buck, but it’s safer for them and us.”

“Tell me everything.”

Steve nodded and revved the engine, flying down the street.

 

* * *

 

Dressed as Benji, Steve walked into the hospital and zeroed in on the bathroom to retrieve his flash drive. Bucky walked behind him in a big hoodie. He stood guard as Steve slipped into the bathroom. Steve pushed the ceiling tile out of the way, feeling along the dusty inside for the pipes and wires. Behind them the flashdrive remained and Steve shoved it in his pocket. He unlocked the door and turned to Bucky, only to find him standing awkwardly with Natasha, who was popping chewing gum just outside the bathroom.

“I would have gotten it myself, but I don’t quite qualify as male and I left my binder in New York,” she said casually.

Looking around, Steve pulled her into a dark room. She knows something and if he has to do something he doesn’t want to to get that info, he will. Bucky followed them in. Steve makes a motion and Bucky closes the door behind them, pulling a gun and holding it cautiously in hand. He doesn't point it at Natasha, not yet, but Steve could order it in a second.

“Where did you get it?” Natasha asked.

“Why would I tell you?” he snapped quietly.

“Fury gave it to you,” she concluded. “Why?”

“Do you know what’s on it?”

“I don’t know,” she says and Steve boils at the probability that she’s lying. She put the information on it, she knows what it is.

“Let’s try the truth this time.”

“I only act like I know everything, Cap,” she says, insulted and annoyed.

“I bet you knew Fury hired the pirates, didn’t you?”

Natasha shrugs. “Well, it makes sense. The ship was dirty, Fury needed a way in, so do you.”

“I’m not gonna ask you again.” He motions and Bucky puts the gun up. Steve himself puts his hand on her throat. He doesn’t want to, be he isn’t trusting anyone with this, not even Nat. Not yet.

“You wouldn’t.”

“We’ll see.”

There’s a silence. 

“I know who killed Fury. A majority of the intelligence community doesn’t believe they exists, the ones who do call them the Winter Soldiers. They’re credited with over three dozen assassinations in the last fifty years, and many more unconfirmed.”

“Yeah, and?”

“Five years ago I was escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran, somebody shot out my tires near Odessa. We lost control, went straight over a cliff, I pulled us out, but one of them was already there.  I was covering my engineer, so he shot him straight through me.” She pulls up her shirt to show him a wicked scar on her stomach. It isn’t pretty, but it isn’t the worst Steve’s seen. “A Soviet slug, no rifling. Bye-bye bikinis.”

Steve motions Bucky to stand down and Steve backs off slightly, crossing his arms. “Not much of a ghost story then. Fine. So they killed Fury. What does the drive have to do with them?”

“Going after them is a dead end. I know, I’ve tried. Like you said, they’re practically ghost stories, but they must have been assigned by some organization.” Natasha tips her head and shrugs.

Steve lets go of her. “Well, let’s go do a little digging, huh?”


	21. Rubatosis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rubatosis: the unsettling awareness of your heartbeat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, yeah, sorry but i've been busy. but here's a bigger chapter than normal, i think! I'll try to post more often, but i'm working hard on teen vig. and its prequel.

After switching cars, Nat, Steve, and Bucky were on the road again. They’ve got a Subaru this time, which is nice, but not ideal. Nat drives while Steve gets dressed in a better disguise. Steve grabs a black tanktop with a red spray painted A on it and pulls it over his head. It’s big and baggy, showing a good deal of his sides, but he can still shove guns in his waistband and have them be unnoticeable. He pulled on some black skinny jeans and grabs a spiked belt. Steve sets about putting in piercings. He flips the lighter on and puts the end of a safety pin to it, near the glowing blue fire at the bottom. 

With quick motions, he pushes the hot metal through his left ear in two places and the right in three. He puts on the random dark colored earrings and continues the matter with his eyebrow, nose, and lip. It hurt quite a bit, but he’s had worse and the pain faded quickly. He also used a can of red colored hair spray after he put his hair up in a bit of a faux-hawk. He puts on Benji’s glasses and shrugged on Mayhem's jacket.

“We’ll be back in thirty minutes or so,” he said to Bucky as they got out. “If we aren’t back by then, or you see any suspicious lookin’ guys, leave and shoot us a warning.”

Bucky nodded and pulled the bag of guns over, shoving one in his waistband and putting a grenade in the cupholder.

With that, they head inside. After walking for a bit, Steve says, “I’ve got pistols in waistband and ammo in my underwear, just in case.” Other than the knife on his back, of course. He would have put the ammo in his pockets, but they’re too damn small.

“I’ve got grenades.”

“Where?” He honestly has no idea. Her boobs fill out her bra just right, and there are no obvious inconsistencies.

“A woman never tells.”

In their disguises, they cut through the crowd with ease. Most people glance at them and then quickly away, not wanting to stare. Together, they quickly go to an Apple store and beeline for a MacBook Pro. “The drive has a level six homing program, so as soon as we boot up SHIELD will know exactly where we are,” Natasha explains.

“That’s not great. How much time do we have?”

She pulls the drive out and hovers over the port. “Uh…about nine minutes from…” she pushes it in and immediately goes for the keys. “Now.” 

Steve watches over her shoulder in interest, feigning an intimate relationship with the closeness that lets him look around her shoulder. 

“Fury was right about that ship, somebody’s trying to hide something. This drive is protected by some sort of AI, it keeps rewriting itself to counter my commands.”

“Can you override it?”

She makes a noise. “The person who developed this is slightly smarter than me. Slightly. I’m gonna try running a tracer. This is a program that SHIELD developed to track hostile malware, so if we can’t read the file, maybe we can find out where it came from.”

Steve nods and starts when someone says “Can I help you guys with anything?”

Steve moves into motion, a thick New Yorker accent on his tongue. “Nah, bro. My girl was just helping me with some honeymoon destinations. You ain’t never gonna believe the never believe the price of a half-decent vacation, so we’re going an alternate route and getting Bee’s aunt to help us out.”

“Aunt Bee is my favorite. I still can’t believe she gets plane tickets for under fifty dollars,” Natasha tacks on.

“Congratulations. Where do you guys thinking about going?” the employee asks.

Steve looks at the screen as he does. “New Jersey.” Ew. 

“Oh.” The man sounds underwhelmed and doubtful so Steve draws up more lies.

“Well, that’s first, to visit Bee’s aunt and then we’re planning on goin’ to Fiji on a cruise.” He says like he’s conspiring with him.

“Nice,” the man nods to Steve’s words. “Oh, hey, I have the exact same glasses!”

“Yeah! Really? These are my favorite, but I gotta get new ones soon.”

“Bummer. Well, if you need anything, I’ve been Aaron!” 

“Thanks, man,” Steve says with a grin as Aaron backs away to go help someone else. As soon as he’s not looking, Steve’s face goes blank and he turns back to Nat, a buzzing in his pocket interrupting him.

He pulls it out and reads the message.  _ ‘Strange vans and gruff looking men in all black passed. Leave?’ _

He shows it to Nat who grimaces and nods. “You said nine minutes. Hurry up,” Steve hisses as he tells Bucky to get out of there and to send them a location after.

“Sh. Relax.” Then- “I’ve got it.” Steve stares at the screen as it zooms in on the location. Wheaton, NJ. That’s… That’s where Camp Lehigh was. He leans closer, surprised. That can’t be a coincidence, can it?

“You know it?” Natasha concludes.

“I might,” he allows. “Now we need to move.” He pulls the drive out and they both leave swiftly, headed to the parking lot. Steve spots the STRIKE team in an instant and mumbles “Standard tag team. Two behind, two across, two comin’ straight at us.”

“I see them,” Nat agrees and puts her arm over his shoulders, making him put his arm around her back. “Laugh at something I said.”

Steve abruptly laughs out loud, focusing thoughts on Bucky’s fantastic bed head and Charlie's little jumps down the stairs.

When the two agents in front of them pass, Steve pulls Natasha toward an exit.

 

* * *

 

They steal a big ass blue Ford truck and pick up Bucky at a gas station five miles away. He’s stress eaten ten hot dogs by the time they pick him up, but he did manage to save a few for Steve and Natasha. Steve buys six beers and purchases a fuel jug, filling it halfway. With these, he makes Molotov cocktails for later use and seals them with Beer Saver caps for later use.

They head to Jersey, Bucky complaining for the first hour of it. Steve did, in fact, join him. The smell, (the opposing mafia families), their pompous attitudes.

Nat drove for the entire thing, circling back once to throw off any tail they might have had. This let Steve and Bucky catch up on some sorely needed sleep in the back seat. By the time they arrive, it’s dark, around ten, and they’re all wide awake.

Bucky peers through the darkness. “What’s this place?”

Nat turns off the car and the lights, motioning for Steve to get out.

“This is where I was trained,” Steve said.

“This dump?” Bucky asks, incredulous. He isn’t wrong. It’s a mess of weeds and wire fencing. The buildings have long since been abandoned and sit dark and silent a way aways. Some of the buildings are even crumbling.

“Best in the East Coast at the time. ‘ _ Nulli Secundus _ .’ Second to none,” Steve says. “Bucky, you wait in the car in case something goes sour.”

“Why?” Bucky asks, sounding annoyed.

“Because Nat and I are spies. We’re good at figuring out what needs to be done and how to properly infiltrate a building without springing any traps or security systems. Tell me, Buck, how fast can you pick a lock?” Steve looks at him.

Bucky doesn’t move and doesn’t answer. “Fine. I’ll wait in the car. Might as fuckin’ well,” he grumbles. “I wish Charlie was here.”

“I’ll make it up to you,” Steve promises, leaning over to steal a kiss. “You’re my favorite, I love you, and I’m sorry.”

Bucky sighs. “Love you too. Be safe, okay?”

“You got it.”

Steve grabbed his shield and the Hydra built guns before exiting. He took a second to put his harness on over the thin tank top before following Natasha over the fence. They started walking deeper into the base, dark shadows illuminated only by the moon and stars. Most of the buildings are familiar to Steve, but some are new. He spots the mess hall and can taste salty coffee on his tongue. He can feel the dull phantom pain from his back and he sighs.

He scratches the back of his neck, over the tattooed dove, and looks around.

“So, you were trained here? Did it change much?” Natasha asks suddenly.

Steve nods, a bit sadly. “A little.” This place wasn’t quite home, but he lived here, trained here. Erskine walked these paths, Peggy did too. When his feet hurt and his back ached and lungs protested every move, he was here. He notices a flag pole and feels almost nostalgic looking at it. He feels a bit of resentment, but there's no heat to it. Hodge is probably dead. He grew old, maybe had a family, and he probably is buried right now. That is, if he made it through the war. There’s no point being angry at dead men.

There's a bit of a silence and Natasha makes an annoyed noise. “This is a dead end. Zero heat signature, zero waves, not even radio… Whoever-”

Steve recognizes that she’s still speaking but he’s found something and he’s trying to piece together what he sees. Munitions shed. And the barracks are just over that way… That’s wrong. That’s new.

“What is it?” Natasha asks suddenly, shaking Steve out of his findings. He motions for her to follow.

“Army regulations forbids storing munitions within five hundred years of the barracks. That building is in the wrong place.”

The front is all locked up with a heavy lock and from first glance, there’s no other way in. Steve looks around. “Don’t tell Bucky I did this,” he says and then takes his shield off, swinging it at the lock and breaking it clean off.

She gives him a look. “Fine. If you give me some blackmail.”

“I caught my drunk friend calling my dog a cat, that work?”

“Sam?”

“Yeah. I was saving it, but…”

“I’ll take it. It’s not good blackmail, but if I befriend him, it might be useful.”

They open it up and tread silently down the steps. Dust is thick in the air and the place looks old and unused. There are some inconsistencies, though, like how it’s tidy despite its age. Natasha flips on a switch at the bottom and the lights flicker into activity. If it was this old, shouldn’t most not work, if at all? On second thought, those lights are new. Florescent. Somebody’s been here.

When he looks around the first thing he spots the logo at the end of the room, one of the original SHIELD symbols, proudly displayed.

“It’s SHIELD,” Natasha sums up.

“Maybe where it started,” Steve replies. There isn’t much to explore here. A lot of it’s old and clearly unused, but they both notice a worn path in the carpeting. Following it leads to a door with opaque windows. This door is unlocked, much to their relief, and they quietly slip inside.

Natasha is dead quiet, and so is he. All they can hear is their noiseless breathing and heartbeats. Steve won’t admit it, but it's nice to walk silently with someone. It startled Bucky sometimes or he kept checking to make sure Steve was still there when they were out. 

The first thing they see in this room is three photographs in old frames, slightly crooked on the wall. Phillips, Stark, and Carter. Oh, Peggy. His mentor, his friend. He thinks of all she accomplished, all she’s done for SHIELD and the world and gives the photo a small smile and a little salute.

Natasha lets him have his moment and then they proceed. Because of their silence, it’s quite easy for Steve to hear the flow of air coming from his left, the empty shelves. Steve stops in front of them and looks all around them for a mechanism, a switch or trigger. Finding none, he puts out his hand, feeling along the edge and where the air is escaping to, the cold air under his fingertips.

He looks at Natasha, receiving a nod and a signal to move forward. He grips the edge of the shelves and pulls to the right. He gets it a few feet before slipping into the crack, putting his back against the steady one and pushing with a foot to get the rest to slide.

Natasha steps over after him.

“If they’re already in a secret bunker,” she mumbles. “Why do they have to hide the elevator?”

Steve gives a little chuckle and watches as she scans the keypad, then pressing in the access code. The elevator ride down is quick and soon the doors open again. The area ahead of them is dark, oozing shadows with only vague twinkling lights in them, spots of green and yellow and red. Square spots on the floor radiate white light, giving them a pathway.

They creep forward, staying low and cautious. Halfway there, the lights flip on without any warning, startling Steve. He slides his shield off his back as they push forward to the operating terminal.

“This can't be the data-point, this technology is ancient,” Natasha huffs a disbelieving laugh.

Steve’s gaze sweeps over the space and he eyes something on the top of the desk space. “Not all of it,” he replies and gestures.

Natasha follows his hand and considers the little hard drive access point, sleek and new, along with a spot where dust had been brushed off and fingerprints remained. She frowns and Steve hands her the drive, nodding her forward.

She plugs it in with a little power-up noise and the machinery around them starts up with noisy whirls and groans. The screen in front of them lights up, type appearing with a shifty sounding electronic voice.  _ ‘Initiate system?’ _

Natasha leans over. “Y-E-S, spells yes.” The computer does with that what it will and Natasha grins a bit. “ _ ‘Shall we play a game?’ _ ” she jokes and then turns to Steve. “It's from a movie that…”

“Yeah, we saw it.” Bucky nearly pissed his pants. Steve was more prepared, but even he clung to Bucky and their popcorn bowl hard enough to crack the plastic.

They look at the computer as it flashes with green. A face appears and Steve stiffens, recognizing the glasses and the shape that appears. Zola. The camera above the monitor moves, aiming at Steve.  _ “Rogers, Steven. Born, 1920.”  _ It moved to look at Natasha. _ “Romanoff, Natalia Alianovna. Born, 1984.” _

How does Zola know that? No one but SHIELD higher-up knows Steve’s identity and have access to his files. Hearing someone know his name, his full name, makes the hair on his arms stand on end.

“It's some kind of a recording,” Natasha says, sounding shocked and numb.

_ “I am not a recording, Fräulein.” _ Zola sasses back.  _ “I may not be the man I was when the Captain took me prisoner in 1945, but I  _ _ am _ _.”  _ Another monitor shows a black and white photo of Dr. Arnim Zola himself.

“Do you know this thing?” Natasha asks him, putting her hand on his shoulder and looking down into his eyes. 

He nods dumbly. “Zola. He was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull. He's been dead for years.” He had checked, found out when. Terminal cancer sometime during the late seventies.

_ “First correction, I am Swiss. _ ” Zola sounds honestly insulted by that, for whatever reason.

“Oh excuse me,” Steve says sarcastically. “I forgot to give a shit about you. My bad.”

_ “You are just as bothersome as I remember. Second, look around you. I have never been more alive. In 1972 I received a terminal diagnosis. Science could not save my body, my mind, however, that was worth saving on two hundred thousand feet of data banks. You are standing in my  _ _ brain _ _.” _

Gross. Steve crinkled his nose and looks around. However, Zola seems open to being interrogated, so Steve drives forward.  “How did you get here?” he asks.

_ “I was invited.” _

Natasha hastens to explain at Steve’s angry and confused look. “Operation Paperclip after World War II. SHIELD recruited German scientists with strategic values.”

Makes sense, but it sounds like a recipe for disaster. 

_ “They thought I could help their cause. I also helped my own,”  _ Zola claimed in a vicious tone.

“Hydra died with the Red Skull,” Steve argues.

The Hydra logo appears on the screen. “ _ Cut off one head- _ ” Zola appears and splits into two mirror images. “ _ -two more shall take its place.” _

“Yeah? Prove it.”

_ “Accessing archive.”  _ The screens around them flash with miscellaneous images and eventually the one to Steve’s left lights up with a clear progressive line of footage. The first thing to appear is the Red Skull himself, though without his more horrible appearance. 

_ “Hydra was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom.”  _ The footage shifts first to an army of Hydra soldiers saluting with both fists in the air, then to footage of soldiers storming Omaha Beach.  _ “What we did not realize, was that if you try to take that freedom, they resist.”  _ The images show vague symbolic imagery, Hydra propaganda and the like.

“Real fuckin’ surprise, you fascist shit,” Steve snaps as the screen shows old security footage of himself in action, walking down a hall in disguise and stabbing another similarly dressed soldier from behind. 

_ “The war taught us much,”  _ Zola continues, unperturbed, as he shows bombings and book burnings, smoke almost tangible.   _ “Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly. After the war, SHIELD was founded and I was recruited.” _

Images of SHIELD’s start up appeared, Peggy, Howard, an office Steve doesn't recognize. Then Zola’s files, old and worn and some sections outlined in black.  _ “The new Hydra grew. A beautiful parasite inside SHIELD. For seventy years Hydra has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war.”  _ More imagery of explosions, weapons, attacks, and guns. Fire, and chaos lines in still pictures and brief film. 

_ “And when history did not cooperate, history was changed.” _ A dark black and white image of five men in a group armed with automatic guns and similar outerwear appeared. The stood tall and firm, unmovable and strong. They radiated confidence and danger and Steve recognized their outlines as the men who attacked and killed Fury.

“That's impossible, SHIELD would have stopped you,” Natasha said on automatic, sounding doubtful of its truth and vaguely hollow.

_ “ _ Accidents _ will happen.” _ The computer screen shows them pictures of newspapers, of  Howard and Maria Stark’s car accident along with Fury’s files, stamped with the word DECEASED. Oh god, Hydra killed Tony’s parents, they killed Fury. Steve feels pale and ill. Who else was a victim to their infection into SHIELD? He puts his hand over his mouth in horror and jostles the piercing there, the brief flash of pain snapping him out of the dark truth.

Footage continues to play modern footage of terrorist attacks, of more bombings and shootings and weaponry.  _ “Hydra created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security. Once the purification process-” _ (‘The Final Solution’ Steve’s mind whispers, genocide, death, innocents, Bucky, the Avengers, Natasha, Clint, dead and  gone )  _ “-is complete, Hydra's new world order will arise.” _ Pictures of the armed helicarriers for Project INSIGHT. Dangerous automatic guns armed and ready. _ “We won, Captain.”  _ Magazine coverage of Steve’s plunge into the ocean, his disappearance and death.  _ “Your death amounts to the same as your life; a zero sum.” _

Emotion and fury explodes in Steve’s veins at the truth of it all and he gives a furious shout, driving his fist into the computer, grabbing the biggest thing he feels in there, and ripping it out. Glass litters the desk and lines his arms with scrapes. A large device drips some kind of oil or battery fluid onto the floor, mixing with the blood from Steve cut up hand. He smashes it against the concrete, breathing roughly through his nose.

_ “Ow.”  _ A screen to their left says, a bit staticky, as if Zola really did feel pain from that.  _ Good _ . Zola deserves pain. That sick bastard experimented on Bucky, built up Hydra, infested SHIELD, he’s the foundation for a corrupt future. Steve would rip his head off if he had the chance.  _ “As I was saying…” _

Steve grabs the box in his hands, the pressure making the screen groan. Zola makes an odd noise, like he gasped in pain. “What's. on. this. drive?” he grits out.

_ “Project INSIGHT requires insight. So I wrote an algorithm,” _ Zola says simply, smugly.

“What kind of algorithm? What does it do?” Natasha adds quickly.

_ “The answer to your question is fascinating. Unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it.”  _

Steve hears a noise behind them and turns in time to see the doors start to close. On instinct, he throws his shield. It’s too late, it’s already closed too much so the black disk flies back. Steve catches it again.

“Steve,” Nat says in horror, looking at her phone. “We got a bogey. Short range ballistic. 30 seconds tops.”

_ “Admit it, it's better-” _

Steve drops any regard of Zola he has and looks around for an escape. Everything around them is open and what they need to do is get under something strong and sturdy. The floor, those mesh coverings. It wouldn’t be perfect, but it would do. He motions for Nat to follow him and pulls just the front up. She snags the drive and dashes over, sliding in, Steve following after and dropping the cover over them. As extra protection, he holds his shield over their heads and huddles close to Nat.

He has just the time to text Bucky a badly spelled ‘misle’ before the facility blows and he drops his phone to push against the falling structure dropping over them.

The shaking and the falling of rock and the awful crack and moan of foundation accompanied with the fire rattled his bones and then the metal grate above them crunched under the weight of concrete, all that was keeping himself and Nat alive was him holding that tons and tons of broken concrete and twisted metal. The noise makes his ears ring and swarms his senses.

Steve… was scared. He really was. He wasn’t sure he could handle this much weight, wasn't sure if he and Nat were going to end up a bloody burnt smear under a pillar of rock and metal, wasn’t sure if Bucky was affected by the blast or not.

All he could do was push against the crumbling building and pray for the best.

When the rumbling and crumbling stopped, the weight unshifting above him and on his shield he allowed himself to breathe and then cough out a lungful of smoke and dust. He shifts, hearing the rock move above him, and looks down at Nat. The rock had spilled into their cracked hideout and evidently, she’s been hit by a chunk of stone. A line of blood ran from her temple to chin and she looked roughed up, but Steve could see her chest moving.

Steve groans and pushes up to test the weight above him. He can get it off. He’s certain of it. He pants and looks down at Natasha.

“Nat, Nat!” He grits out, his arms starting to burn, his back starting to ache, and his legs shaking slightly. She’s out, unable to help or be ready to move. Steve’ll have to move quick if the mass shifts too much above him.

Steve lets out a breath and sucks another in, preparing himself. All at once he surges up, pushing and straining against the weight of thousands of pounds of smoldering rock. He pants and groans against it, pushing the pillar of rock away and letting more light into their dark hole.

The blast appeared to have spread the building out instead of just collapsing it over them, so the area has a slope to climb up. A lot of it is on fire and smoke and dust fills the air in thick clouds. Steve coughs, putting his hand over his mouth to fight off the irritation that builds up in his throat. He turns around and pulls Natasha out of the hole, pulling her over his shoulders.

Abruptly, he hears airships fly overhead, their blue lights cutting through the smoke and he runs as fast as he can, careful not to jostle Nat too much. He runs behind big pieces of debris to make sure he’s out of line of sight and when he comes to the fence, shellshocked Bucky on his knees and plastic fingers through the mesh, he sighs in relief, checking over his shoulder once more.

“Steve, oh thank god,” Bucky says, standing shakily. “Th- the missile came out of nowhere- I couldn’t-”

“They’re after us!” Steve cut in. “We need to go. Start the car! Kill the lights!”

“Right- right!” Bucky runs back to the car, climbing in and turning it on. Steve breaks the fence open with a kick and then swiftly climbs in, putting Nat in the back and Bucky speeds away, putting the pedal to the medal.

“What the hell happened!?” Bucky demanded.

“It was a trap,” Steve pants, using a flashlight to check Nat’s head for the superficial injury. He checks her eyes. Both are normal sized… no concussion that he can tell. “It…” Steve debate telling Bucky. “There…” he can’t bring himself to say it. He doesn’t want to hurt Bucky. But he’d never lied to Bucky before and he wouldn’t start now.

“It was a SHIELD base, one of the first. In the basement was a computer system. When we plugged in the drive, it came online. It… You know how we thought JARVIS was a person, or, like he was a person made to be a robot?”

“Yeah? What’s about it? It made Tony laugh, but it made sense-”

“They did that. It was a person. It was Zola.”

The car trembles as Bucky’s hands abruptly jerk and then realign. “F-fuck,” Bucky grits out. “They- they made that  _ sick fuck a fucking machine _ !?”

“Yeah. There was a program that recruited German scientists. For SHIELD. Zola was once and when he got cancer and wouldn’t get better, they saved his mind. He was useful enough. He’s gone now, the missile finished him off for good. He made the files on the drive, stalled us with new information in order to get the missile there before we left.”

“It’s bad information, I’m guessing,” Bucky said, irritated.

“Hydra infected SHIELD,” Steve informed him. “SHIELD has been compromised since the beginning. That’s what Fury meant by trusting no one. I’m guessing they sent the missile and I know my STRIKE team is dirty. Dammit, I trusted them,” he growled. He let out a breath. “Okay, we need to get somewhere safe.”

“Where? Anyone can be Hydra for all we know.”

“...Any one  _ SHIELD, _ ” Steve said slowly. “Get us back to DC. I know someone who owes me one.”


	22. Abditory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abditory: a place into which you can disappear; a hiding place

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah, lol, sorry ive been busy but this isnt actually abandoned!

As they get closed to DC Steve feels increasingly guilty. There’s absolutely no way he can get away with going to Sam with Nat and Bucky looking like hell and on the run. He has no choice but to tell the truth and he feels bad for lying to Sam since the beginning. He can just hope that Sam understands. Also, he remembered that he and Sam were supposed to go on a run this morning, so Sam was probably already worried. He might have even called Steve’s phone, only Steve had lost that during the chaos the missile sprang.

When they stop to hotwire another car, Steve notices that his shirt’s gotten holes in places. Damn. He liked this shirt… well, actually, it gives it a good aesthetic. He’ll keep it on. He kind of likes the punk rock look at the moment. Anarchy seems like a pretty good theme at the moment and if he looks like he crawled out a fire pit; good. The pants have gotten torn knees as well, but his boots are fine and his hair is only a little singed.

The new car is a new mini-van with a small sunroof and blue in color. Steve put the supplies, the weapons and such, on the center consul, putting all the owner's junk in the glove compartment. Natasha woke an hour before they got to Sam’s house and they double checked for a concussion, relieved to find it not a problem.

When they got to Sam’s neighborhood, they parked a block away and cut right across, jumping in and out of people's backyards because they couldn’t be bothers to go the long way and the long way was more dangerous.

When they arrived in Sam’s backyard, Steve boosted Nat and Bucky up to the balcony of Sam’s place. The door was locked, but Sam’s car was in the yard, so Steve knocked awkwardly. He couldn’t see through the curtain there, but after a second, if flipped up, Sam looking confused and cautious on the other side. He was in his running stuff, a purple shirt and black shorts. Must have just gotten back.

Sam unlocked the door and pulled it to the side. “Hey, man… Nice… look...”

Steve unconsciously touches the piercings in his ear and then grimaces. “I’m sorry about this. We need a place to lay low,” Steve says pleadingly.

Sam blinks in shock at the lack of accent and his eyes crinkled, more guarded. “What the hell-”

“Everyone we know is trying to kill us,” Nat adds.

Sam looks at the three of them and then closes his eyes. “Not everyone. But I  _ would like _ an  _ explanation _ .”

He escorts them in and systematically closes every blind to make sure no one can see in.

When the place is locked down, Sam comes in with crossed arms. Bucky and Steve are sitting on the couch together, Steve’s arm behind Bucky’s back and Nat sitting on a chair she pulled from the dining room table. She's got her face in her hands and hasn’t moved since she sat down.

“Now,” Sam says. “Since I have a lot of emotions right now, I’m gonna get them out. First off, you two look like shit.”

“Thanks, Sam,” Steve says dryly.

“And what the fuck is wrong with you!?” Sam snaps. “I could have sworn you were fucking _ German  _ this morning but I  _ guess not _ !”

Steve sighs and rubs his face, catching the lip piercing again. Annoyed, he pulled it out and tossed it on the table. With it out, the itch of it healing appears. “Sam. Listen. I’m sorry I lied. I am, but it was important to me to maintain a secret identity. It was for my safety as well as yours.”

“So you’re a spy? What, a sleeper agent or some shit?”

Steve’s lips quirk. “I think I would have pretended to be American for that, huh?” He sighs when Sam doesn't look any happier. “Okay. Fine, here’s the whole truth. My name is Steve Rogers and, well, I’m the Captain. That’s the Black Widow, and Chris is actually James Barnes”

Sam looks frozen for a second before his eyes widen in comprehension and his hand goes over his mouth. He looks around, like he’s being bluffed and then rubs his face. His hands flutter around his head for a second and settle over his face, blocking him from view.

“Oh, shit.” There’s a pause. “Oh, shitfuck.” Sam breaths deeply for a second and turns away. “I have a lot of thoughts, just let me figure them out.” Sam takes another breath and turns around. “Okay, first of all. I’m still fucking pissed. I’ll figure out how to be passive aggressive about it later, but for now; fuck you.”

“Fair enough.”

“Second of all, I know  _ the Captain's name _ . And I pushed him, you, into the reflecting pool. Third of all, I feel like I can’t be mad at you because you had a good reason and disguises is what you  _ do _ .” Sam groaned and rubbed his face, sighing. “Fourth of all, I’m wondering what the fuck happened to you three.” Sam looks at them again. “Steve. God, that’s so close to Stefan, of course it is. Fuck. Just… you and the Black Widow can get cleaned up my bathroom. It’s just off my bedroom. Chr- Sergeant Barnes. You help me with breakfast. I’m starving and I need this conversation on a full stomach.”

“Alright,” Bucky agrees.  Nat and Steve get up and start down the hall.

“Hey, where’s your service dog?” Sam asks.

Bucky sounds pained when he answers. “Staying with our neighbors. The cat too.”

Natasha takes a quick shower first, Steve going in immediately after. In fact, it was kind of like when she stepped out, he stepped in, the water never turning off. Because they had synchronized entrances and exits, they avoided seeing each other and conserved water.

Steve watched red hair dye and blood wash down the drain as well as murky water. He sighed and scrubbed at his face. He felt small suddenly. He didn’t know what Project INSIGHT just was yet, or what Zola’s algorithm does. He’s only got half the puzzle pieces and he’s got no clue where to go from here.

On top of that, Hydra is still alive and kicking. Kicking pretty hard, in fact. Steve finishes watching and grabs a towel after shutting off the water. He dries and dressed quickly.  Outside, Natasha is slowly drying her hair with her towel, staring off into the distance.

“You okay?”

Natasha sighs and nods. “Yeah.”

“Somthin’s the matter. What's goin’ on?”

Natasha stares for a bit and then clears her throat. “When I first joined SHIELD, I thought it was going straight. But I guess I just traded in the KGB for Hydra. I thought I knew whose lies I was telling, but… I guess I can't tell the difference anymore.”

“That’s the business, ain't it? It ain’t easy. But, hey, you thought you were doin’ right and so did I. If they can trick the best spy in history, I don’t think anybody'd blame ya.” Steve tapped his nose and smiled as he winked.

She laughed a bit. “Yeah, I suppose. Maybe the trick is to keep your own secrets.”

“Personally, I think the trick is finding the right person to tell them to. I’ve got Bucky. You had Fury. We know that Fury was clean.”

Natasha nodded sadly.

“Hydra is the problem. Not SHIELD. Not what SHIELD was supposed to be.”

Natasha nods. “I owe you.”

“S’okay,” Steve replied.

“If it was the other way around, and it was down to me to save your life, and you be honest with me, would you trust me to do it?”

“I do now. We spies gotta stick together, huh?” He sticks out a hand, pinkie extended.

“You’re such a child,” she says wetly, and hooks pinkies with him.”You seem pretty chipper for someone who just found out they died for nothing.”

“Heh. Maybe, but I gotta admit, I’m looking forward to really fuckin’ them up a second time. This time permanently.”

“Here’s hoping you don’t die… again.”

“Knock on wood.”

Sam comes to the doorway. “We made breakfast. If you guys...take the time to eat that sort of thing.”

“I really did have to go to work, you know.”

“Yeah man, sure.”

 

* * *

 

 

A little later, after they’ve eaten and feel generally better, Natasha clears her throat. “So, the question is who in SHIELD could launch a domestic missile strike?”

“Pierce,” Steve answers immediately. “I know that he’s dirty.”

Natasha nods. “A traitor who happens to be sitting on top of the most secure building in the world.”

Steve considers. “But he's not working alone, Zola's algorithm was on the Lemurian Star.”

Natasha’s eyes widen. “So was Jasper Sitwell.”

“The only high ranking agent there,” Steve agreed. “So, a better question is how do the three most wanted people in Washington kidnap a SHIELD officer in broad daylight?”

Sam huffs a breath out and walks over to a shelf, grabbing a packet off of it and walking back. “The answer is: you don't.” He drops the folder in front of Steve and he takes it, intrigued. Bucky leans over Steve’s shoulder, also interested. He’s munching on some toast so Steve pushes his face away. 

“Swallow your food; you're an animal.”

“I am offended on behalf of both our animals,” Bucky claimed.

“What's this?” Steve asks Sam.

“Call it a resume.”

Natasha picks up a photo of Sam with his team and looks at it as Steve flips through the file, reading quickly.

Natasha makes an impressed sound, attracting Steve’s attention. “Is this Bakhmal? The Khalid Khan Dil mission, that was you?” She looks at Steve. “I didn't know he was a para-rescue.”

“Well, all you looked at was his Twitter,” Steve shot back, then took the photo. He remembers a drunk conversation a while ago, Sam talking about his friend who died. “Is this Riley?” he asks kindly. 

Sam nods and says, “Yeah,” softly.

Natasha continues. “I heard they couldn't bring in the choppers because of the RPGs. What did you use, a stealth chute?”

“No. These.” He taps on the file in Steve’s hand and Natasha looks over his shoulder. Steve whistles, impressed. “I thought you were a pilot.”

“I never said a pilot,” Sam grins.

Steve turns serious. “I can't ask you to do this, Sam. You’re under no obligation to help, really-”

“Dude,  _ the Captain _ needs my help. There's no better reason to get back into this again.”

Steve looks down at the wings. Beautiful artistic wings. He want’s to draw them in action sometime, just seeing the plans makes him itch for a pencil. “Where can we get our hands on one of these things?”

“The last one is at Fort Meade, behind three guarded gates and a twelve-inch steel wall.”

Steve scoffs immediately. Is that all? He’s broken into the White House for a pair of ashtrays.

Natasha smiles. “Sounds like fun.”

Bucky makes a noise of mild exasperation and throws his hands up. “Breaking into a secure facility is fun now, how about that. Fuck my book club, I guess.”


End file.
